Everything Will Be Okay
by Just A Thrower
Summary: So this is a High School/Boarding School Au with Clarke, Lexa, and the gang. Lots of plot, but I promise their relationship will develop quickly with frequent updates. Also some Octavia/Raven to hold you over until Clarke and Lexa offically get together in this fic. Clexa and Octaven.
1. The Transfer

**So hopefully you guys like this fic. It's only my second one and my first Clexa. If there are any errors or you just want to review, that would be great, thanks!**

It's the first day of the new school year here at Ark High, a private boarding school several hours South of Chicago close to a small town by the name of TonDC. It's been around since the mid 1800's so all of the buildings are done in the Neo-Classical style, indicative and reminiscent of the Roman and Greek architecture with large columns, colonnades, domes, and arched doorways. The campus itself isn't bad. There are tons of trees everywhere, a large forest surrounds the whole campus and we have all of the modern amenities, an Olympic sized swimming pool, a state of the art track and field complex with a turf football field in the middle with two soccer fields off to the side, a softball field, a baseball field, a lacrosse field, two huge gyms where basketball, wrestling, and volleyball practice, along with a separate weight lifting and workout building. But as gifted as Ark High is in athletics, it is twice as gifted in academics. Every classroom is outfitted with the latest technology, we have the best text books and online programs money can buy and all of our teachers and professors are the best in their fields. We have a reputation of excellence when it comes to every aspect of Ark High. As students, we are required to fulfill this expectation at all times, so that means no alcohol, drugs, parties, basically anything fun. Though this doesn't stop us from trying. There's this huge black-market for anything banned and almost every Saturday an underground party is held deep in the woods so that we don't get caught.

As you can probably guess, this place isn't for people without boatloads of money or people with deep connections. I guess the only other way to get into Ark High is to be crazy smart or crazy good at multiple sports, but both of these things are very rare occurrences and the whole time I've been a student here, there have only been a handful of these kind of students.

I guess I should introduce myself right? My name is Clarke Griffin and I'm starting my third year at Ark High, so I'm a Junior this year. You could say I have it all, popular, top of my class, I have tons of friends, I always get invited to the underground parties, captain of the 2 time state champion cheerleading team, and about to be late to my first class of the school year, AP Political Science with Professor Kane.

"Clarke! What the hell? It's only the first day of class and you're already late." That beautiful speech was made by my best friend since birth, Octavia Blake. She's the captain of the girls' varsity soccer team, reigning state champions. Octavia is also on the varsity girls' basketball team and track team. Her older brother Bellamy Blake is a Senior and the one who always organizes all of the underground parties. He's on the varsity football team and boys' lacrosse team.

"Yeah Griffin, you're always in class early sucking up to the teacher." With that Octavia high fives Raven Reyes, my other best friend since childhood. Raven is wicked smart, has been since forever. She's always fooling with some robot or machine in her and Octavia's dorm room. Last year, after she launched her own satellite into orbit, she got a letter from MIT, telling her when she was ready to go to college, they had a full ride for her.

"Will you guys shut up," I hiss as Professor Kane starts introducing the class, "I was waiting for my roommate to show up, but she never did."

Octavia snorts next to me, "Who the hell is this chick anyways? Everyone I've asked said they've never heard of her."

"Lexa Woods, team captain of the Polis Raiders football team, All-American Quarterback as a sophomore. 3000 total passing yards, 45 touchdowns, and a 68% completion rate with only 7 interception in 2 years. She started as varsity quarterback as a freshman, started all of her games at Polis, and it says here that she is ranked 3rd in the nation for the heptathlon." Raven says looking up from her tablet.

"So she's a transfer then." Octavia quips, a slight air of disapproval in her voice.

"Hey," Raven says, "You wouldn't judge her so harshly is you saw her picture." And with that Octavia and I crowd around Raven's tablet.

"Hot damn." And I can't help but agree with Octavia on this one. Lexa is stunning, she stands at least 6 feet tall, her skin is heavily tanned making her look like she's always been under the sun, she has long wavy brunette locks that are pulled back into lots of tiny braids in the picture we're looking at. The next one Raven shows us is her in a track uniform, and if we weren't in class, Octavia would be wolf howling right now. Lexa is defiantly in shape, and saying that is doing her injustice. Lexa's muscles would put most of the guys in this school to shame. Her abs would defiantly put Superman's to shame for God's sake.

We end up spending the rest of class looking for pictures, news articles, videos, and stats about Lexa. The only thing we can't find is anything about why she is transferring schools. There are no interviews with her, her old coaches, any parents or friends. Nothing.

"According to some of my friends at Polis," Raven says after we thoroughly look through everything we can, "Lexa is nice enough if not a little closed off. According to my sources, she is a great leader and the guys in her team started to call her Commander after the fifth straight game of her freshman season. Rumor has it, she started this thing on the team where they wear their eye black like war paint instead of just under their eyes. Guess it worked."

"Have you heard anything about why she's transferring in the middle of her high school career?" Octavia asks.

"I'm not 100 percent sure, but I think it has something to do with some accident that happened on New Years of her Sophomore year. My source says that after they got back from Christmas break, Lexa wasn't the same. She was cut off from everyone, wouldn't talk, always had this cold neutral expression. Apparently before then she was lively and would joke around with everyone, apparently the life of the party, but after… No one quite knows what happened, but if I had to put money on it, I would defiantly have to say what ever happened over break is why she transferred this year."

The bell finally rings Octavia, Raven and I head out to our next class that we luckily have together, P.E. And really I don't understand why we need 4 years of the class. Even though everyone at Ark High is here for the 'education' most everyone participates in at least one sport or extracurricular activity that would keep you in shape.

Octavia, Raven and I were the last ones in the locker room, Octavia and I were waiting for Raven to finish readjusting her brace. Raven got in a pretty bad car crash the summer of sophomore years and since then has had to wear a full leg brace to help her walk.

When we finally make it out of the locker room, Indra, our P.E. teacher and assistant football coach yells at us to start running.

"Blake! Griffin! Let's go! We're doing the mile run test today to set a base line! So that's 4 laps around the track, for time!" She then turns to Raven, "Reyes grab a stop watch and start timing your slacking friends, I'm timing everyone else since they were on time!" The last part was aimed at Octavia and I's backs.

7 minutes and 23 grueling seconds later, Octavia and I cross the finish line. We both collapse next to Raven who pats us on the shoulders.

"Not bad guys, but next time lets aim for under 7 minutes shall we?"

"Right and next time you're going to join us right?" Octavia asks still trying to catch her breath.

"Please if I wanted to get all sweaty and out of breathe there are far more pleasurable things to do than run 4 laps around a track." At her words Octavia's checks flush, but Raven doesn't seem to take notice.

"All right ladies, we're not done yet," a loud groan echoes from the crowd of now huddled girls, "If you complain, you can run an extra mile!" Indra yells. "Now as I was saying, we will also be doing a pushup, sit up, pull up, and weight lifting tests. The weight lifting part will be for tomorrow, but today you need to find a partner and get ready to do pushups and sit ups. After that we will do the pull up test. Now hurry up!"

I turn to Octavia and we move over to an empty spot not too far away from Indra but far enough so that we won't be doing pushups near anyone else's butt.

"You have 1 minute to do as many pushups as possible. Ready. GO!" And somehow I end up going first so I quickly start bobbing up and down, bending my elbow until it is 90 degrees and then straitening it back up, again and again and again until Indra calls time and I collapse on my face. I hear Octavia mutter something about 36 so I guess that's how many I ended up doing. Octavia goes next getting 41 pushups. We then move to sit ups. I get 55 and Octavia gets 50. The last thing we have to do today is the pull up test.

We follow Indra over to the pull up bar that stands close to the bleachers. "All right, this is going to be hard for most of you so we're going to have a demonstration to show you how these are supposed to look." With that Indra points to someone in the crowd of girls that surround her.

I can see a tall girl with long brunette hair done in lots of little braids move to the front of the crowd. I can see her say something to Indra who nods back then the girl moves to the pull up bar. There she finally turns around, and when she does I can feel Octavia suck in a breath next to me because there stands my new roommate, Lexa Woods. And we all watch as she jumps up to grab the bar and then proceeds to do 32 unbroken pull ups.

When Lexa finally finishes her pull ups and drops back to the ground, someone elbows me in the ribs. I turn to see that it's Raven.

"Clarke please shut your mouth, your gay is showing." And with that I clamp my mouth shut.

But it's not long until my eyes begin to wander the crowd of girls looking for Lexa. And it really isn't that hard to find her, she stands at least a head above everyone else. At some point Indra calls me up to do my pull ups. I take a nervous gulp as Octavia pushes me forward getting 10 on her turn. I try not to look at Lexa as I stand under the pull up bar. I take a couple deep breathes then jump, grabbing onto the cool metal. I take a few seconds so that my body stops swinging then finally start pulling my chin up to the bar lower myself down and repeating the process until I can no longer do so. At that point I let go of the bar and drop back down to Earth.

"Good job Griffin, 13 pull ups on the first try, not too bad." Indra says with a pat on the back as I pass by to go rejoin Raven and Octavia. When the last girl finishes and Indra writes down all of our numbers, she dismisses us to go get changed for the rest of our classes.

We manage to get changed before the bell rings and say goodbye to each other. We don't have classes together again until after lunch. Raven has AP Calculus then French, Octavia has French then History of Ancient Warfare, and I have Advanced drawing and AP American Literature.

 **The next chapter will be out tomorrow.**


	2. Assumptions and Introductions

**Hope you guys liked the first chapter. I'm not sure how long this story will be, but hopefully it will last a while. Let me know what you think, again if there are any errors, let me know.**

Lunch ends up being used to discuss my mysterious new roommate.

"I swear she must be some kind of super human experiment, grown in a lab." Octavia says around a mouthful of peanut butter and jelly.

Raven gives her a disgusted look, "No, she's defiantly normal human, did you see those scars when she was doing the pull up test. I don't think a super human would have scars like those." Raven did have a fair point. Lexa was covered in white scars that contrasted with her tanned skin like a white streak on a black canvas.

"There's probably a perfectly normal explanation for how she got those scars. Also, we know she's been playing football probably before she started high school, so we can assume she has been working out since middle school. And I'm sure having to play with all guys all the time hasn't hurt either."

"Clarke shut up, you just want to see the rest of her."

"Yeah Raven's right, you're going to have to either learn to control your gay since you'll be sharing a room with her or ask her out or at least kiss her for God's sake."

"Octavia! Fuck off will you? I don't even know anything about her yet accept for her stats from Polis, a few rumors, and what she looks like. I haven't even heard her speak yet, if anything you guys need to drop it. I can handle her on my own." I finally get out, because really what do I really know about Lexa Woods?

"Handle who Clarke?" I literally face palm as Bellamy Blake walks up to our table dumbs his tray next to his sister and starts to shovel food into his mouth.

"That new girl, what was her name, Lexa?" He spits along with half the food in his mouth.

"Yeah Clarke here is crushing hard on the transfer girl from Polis." Octavia enlightens him.

"Ah so we are talking about Lexa. Well good luck with that Clarke, if the pictures of her are even remotely accurate, at least half of the student population will be after her within a week." I just roll my eyes and turn back to my own sandwich. "But hey, if you want you can invite her to the first underground party this year. I plan on having it on Saturday as a kind of welcome back get to know the freshman drunk kind of thing." Bellamy says this last part in a whisper, looking around to make sure no one else heard him.

"Of course she's going to ask Lexa, and count us in Bellamy, I love getting my party on!"

"You are such a dork Octavia, honestly if I didn't know you played varsity and are a badass I would have thought you collected pony stickers in your free time."

"Sorry O, but I totally agree with Raven on this one. Actually now that I think about it, didn't you coll-" Before Bellamy has a chance to finish his sentence, Octavia has her hand firmly clapped around his mouth and is stabbing him between the ribs with the other one. At the sight of the two siblings fighting, Raven and I burst into laughter.

After lunch, the day was pretty uneventful. I had French while Octavia and Raven had AP American Literature and then Octavia and I had trig while Raven was in AP Physics which was supposed to be her free credit, but whatever. Then we have our science classes, which are all different. Octavia is taking Chemistry while Raven is in Astronomy, and I'm taking AP Anatomy.

I take a seat close to the back of the room but where I can still see the board. Professor Gustus walks through the door just as the bell rings. He looks around the room finally introducing himself and the class when everyone gets quite. Its 5 minutes later when none other than Lexa walks through the door, a large duffel bag thrown over her shoulder. Professor Gustus stops talking, turns and looks Lexa over, crosses his arms over is large chest, and leans back against his desk.

"Ms. Woods, how nice to see you. And if I may be so bold, but why are you late to class on the first day of school?"

"Sorry Coach, but Indra stopped me in the hall to give me this," At that she hefts her bag, inadvertently showing off her arm muscles.

"Sorry to hear that Ms. Woods, but that will be 2 extra laps at practice. And you will address me as Professor Gustus in this classroom. Now take a seat. I think there is on open next to Clarke." And with that the room breaks into low murmurs some of which I manage to make out while Lexa puts her bag by the door and starts to make her way towards me and the empty seat at my lab table. Most of the chattering is just about her transferring Junior year, but there are also murmurs of why people think she transferred. Most are just speculation, but one peaks my interest. A boy named Cage is snarking about some car crash that happened last New Year's Eve.

I'm distracted by what he's saying as Lexa finally sits down next to me and Professor Gustus starts talking again. I try to focus on what he's saying, but my eyes keep wandering over to the brunette next to me who seems to be solely focused on what Professor Gustus is saying and writing on the board and not the chatter about her from everyone else in the class.

The bell finally rings which signals the end of the school day and everyone sprints out of the classroom. Well except for Lexa and I. I watch her make her way up to Professor Gustus as I finish collecting my papers and books.

"Gustus, I have a few questions."

"That would be Professor Gustus to you, we are still in my classroom." You can see Lexa physically bristle at being corrected.

" _Professor_ Gustus," she bites out and he just sighs, "I was wondering where my room is since I didn't get any kind of information this morning."

"Well Lexa, Clarke here can help you with that as you'll be rooming together." They both turn to me and I offer a small smile in her direction. She returns it with a current nod.

"Nice to meet you Clarke." Formal, curt so far what I've heard is true, but I'm still holding out hope for her to prove those rumors wrong. I reply with a simple 'hey.'

"I was also wondering when practices were and what I need to wear. Also where I should change. Indra failed to tell me when she handed me my equipment earlier."

Professor Gustus just chuckles, "Of course she did. Practices are Monday thru Friday from 4:00 until 7:00. You can wear any kind of workout clothes you want for now since we'll just be conditioning and running drills for the next couple of weeks, after that everyone will get their practice uniform along with your actual game uniform and equipment. And you can change in the girl's locker room. I'm sure Clarke wouldn't mind showing you as she has practice tonight as well." Lexa nods to Professor Gustus as he finishes explaining and then turns to look at me.

"Um well Professor Gustus, I had a couple questions myself." He nods for me to continue. "I was wondering if you had the additional material that we talked about last year. I want to get started on it as soon as possible."

Professor Gustus sighs as he moves behind his desk and riffles through some of his drawers before he come out with a new textbook, thick packet of papers and a substantial workbook.

"Clarke, you do know you don't have to do this right? The work load you are taking on now with all of your AP classes is plenty of stress for now. Maybe we should wait until next year to do this." He gestures to the stack he is holding.

"Sorry Professor, but I need to do this. I don't think I'll have any problem keeping up in my other classes and if it does get to be too much, I can just postpone what I don't finish until next year."

"Clarke, you and I both know that you'll finish this even if you are struggling. There is no way you won't, you'll do anything you can to make everything work even at the sacrifice of yourself. I just don't want what happened last year to be what happens this year, that's all." And he does look genuinely concerned, but I really don't give a shit at the moment.

"Thank you for your concern Professor, but I think it's time for Lexa and I to head back to our room. We need to get ready for our practices." That wasn't a lie either, it's already 3:30.

Professor Gustus sighs again, the man really does that a lot, "Alright Clarke, but if you need anything, please let me know? You know you can always come talk to me."

"Right, right, I know, see you later Professor." I call over my shoulder as I grab Lexa's arm and drag her out of the classroom and in the direction of the dorms. As we make our way to our room, Lexa doesn't say a word about the Professor and I's conversation which I'm eternally grateful for.

Our dorm room is on the top floor of the 5 story ancient brick building. I've had the same room since moving here after middle school. The room itself is a corner room so it's bigger than the other rooms and has two windows, one on each wall with a bed underneath. It's also possible to get on the roof which apparently is off limits to students. There's this old fire escape on the outside of one of the windows that if you get on, lets you climb up the 3 feet of building to get to the roof. I spent a lot of time up there Freshman year, just wanting to be alone and draw. Of course that rarely happened because whenever I would get in one of my moods, Raven or Octavia would come find me and drag me into their dorm room to share some of the alcohol that Octavia always has, curtesy of her brother.

I finally manage to get the door open, sometimes the lock sticks, and surprisingly, Lexa's trunk is already in the room. I look back at her, cocking one of my eyebrows in silent question and she just shrugs.

"I'm not sure how it got in here. I left it in the dean's office this morning. He told me to go straight to class and that he would take care of it." I just shrug, I don't really care how it got in here as long as my stash is still here. Right my stash. At the end of Freshman year, Bellamy wanted to keep all his contraband at school, something about increased security next year or whatever, and since I was staying the summer, my room would be the perfect location. He and Octavia cut out a hole in the wall underneath my headboard and cleared out the insulation to make room for everything. He forgot about it over break and ended up bringing new stuff the next year so I got to keep everything. And at the end of last year, he just gave me whatever he had left over. So now I have a rather large stash of things that could get me in a lot of trouble if one of the staff found.

I check my stash as I hear Lexa open and riffle through her trunk, probably looking for workout clothes. Luckily my stash is all there so I strengthen up open my own trunk, grab some shorts, a t-shirt, and sports bra.

"If you're ready I can show you where the girl's locker rooms are."

"Thank you." And with that we exit our room, I turn and lock the door, then we're off to the field. By

By the time we make it to the locker room, most of my squad has already changed and you can hear Indra's voice yelling at the boys to run faster. I hear Lexa mutter how she's going to be in so much trouble. She must change in some kind of world record because by the time I stand back up and turn around, she's running out of the locker room fully dressed.

As she runs out the door, the whole locker room can hear Indra yelling at Lexa.

"Woods! There better be a God damned good explanation why you're late! No? Then that's 4 more laps plus the 2 warm up laps and I heard you were late to class and got 2 more! Better hurry up! No one is late to my practices!"

I'm pretty sure we all cringe at Indra's words. Lexa now has to run 2 miles plus the one she already ran in P.E. I hope she makes it through her first practice.

 **The next chapter will be out tomorrow.**


	3. Getting To Know You

**Alright guys, get ready for major plot and feels. Lexa opens up and we get a lot of mush from Clarke. Enjoy! As always, please let me know what you thought and if there are any errors, let me know.**

Turns out there was no reason for me to worry about Lexa.

Once the squad and I got out on the field, we spent the first 10 minutes of practice watching Lexa run around the track and then go warm up with the rest of the team. We eventually started doing our own warm ups and then started working on drills. Every once in a while, I would look over at the football practice and see Lexa standing tall, throwing the ball, avoiding tackles, pushing sleds. Even though she's covered in sweat, she doesn't seem too winded at all.

The girls and I call practice a little before 7:00 so that we can change and get in the cafeteria before it closes at 7:45. I move to my locker and start to clean the sweat off and put on a clean tank top. There's really no point in changing back in to my uniform going to dinner then going back to my dorm where I'll take a shower and change into some sweats to sleep in.

By the time I say goodbye to everyone and make sure no one has left anything behind, Lexa comes into the locker room shirt less and short less. It takes everything in me not to stare at the scars that cover her body. The biggest one I notice is on her back. It stretches from her left shoulder all the way down to her right hip. She must feel my eyes on her back because she pulls a loose tank top on over loose fitting sweat pants.

"I was in a car crash New Year's Eve of Sophomore year. A piece of the other car cut my back open. I had 4 broken ribs, my left leg has broken in 3 places, my right arm was snapped in half, and I had severe burns on my legs. I was in the hospital for 2 months. I had to go through 4 hours of physical therapy 6 days a week during the rest of the school year and more or less all day during the summer to be able to play again. Even now, I still have to go 3 times a week for a couple of hours to the trainer. But there are it could have been far worse…" She says the part with a bitter laugh. But I can't think of anything worse than what she just described.

"How could it been worse?" I ask which was a mistake because she instantly closes, up her face becoming a mask of indifference.

"Clarke, there are things that are far worse than suffering physical pain or injury." And with that, she zips up her little duffle bag throwing it over her shoulder, closing and locking her locker, and turning back to me.

"I'm assuming the cafeteria is still open? Otherwise I'm going to track down Indra and make her feed me."

I can't help but smile at her threat. "Yeah the cafeteria is open until 7:45, but people are still there until 8 incase practices run over."

Lexa nods and waits for me to start walking before quietly following behind. It's a quiet walk to the cafeteria which is luckily right next to the dorms. As we start to eat I gather enough courage to try and talk to her again.

"So how was your first day of school here at Ark High?"

Lexa sighs and puts down her cup of Gatorade she was drinking from, "It was nothing different from my old school class wise. I've always been put in advanced courses and done well. The uniforms are fine I guess, nothing really to complain about." She can speak for herself.

I hate our uniforms. Navy plaid skirts that go down to your knee, knee high white socks, a white blouse with a navy and gold tie, the school colors, and either a blazer or sweater with the school crest on the left side. Guys wear navy slacks, navy socks, a black belt, a white Oxford, the same tie, and a sport coat with the crest on it. Well girls can wear that too, but very few do. As far as I was aware, Octavia was the only one who did, something against not being able to fight in a skirt? But there's a reason not a lot of girls do, they just can't pull of the pants. Well except Octavia and that's the only reason Raven and I let her wear them. But I noticed today that Lexa was also sporting the pants and Oxford look and she somehow manages to make them look amazing, even better than Octavia, which is saying something.

"I guess I was expecting people to talk about me transferring in half way through high school or about how I'm playing football when people usually think of football as a guy's sport. I guess I just wasn't expecting for people to know about the accident or to talk about it so much…" As she says this, I watch the mask she seems to wear slip away a little and I can see her real feelings, especially in those eyes. Her eyes are a beautiful emerald green, with enough depth to drown the best swimmers in. They instantly remind me of the forests that surround us on all sides, rich, wild, but old. Which surprise me because what has this girl who sits across from eating a piece of grilled chicken been through in her what 16, 17 years of life to make her eyes look like they have seen things that no kid should.

The moment is broken when Octavia comes up from behind me and slaps me on the back and I watch as Lexa's mask comes back, her eyes looking more like steel than forests.

"Octavia, Raven, this is my new roommate Lexa Woods, Lexa this is Octavia Blake and Raven Reyes, both Juniors and my friends since forever."

"Hey is Clarke has told you anything about me, she's lying right through her teeth, don't believe a word this kid says."

"Oh shut it Octavia," Raven says coming to my rescue, "This one here," she shoves Octavia out or her chair, "Was dropped on her head as a child and is delusional. You can tell this because she is hopelessly in love with sports."

I watch Lexa's face carefully, for any sign of emotion, which I find in her eyes, as Raven says this.

"What do you play Octavia?" Lexa asks her.

"It's more like what doesn't she play," I snark in Octavia's direction and again I see it, a small flash in Lexa's otherwise emotionless eyes.

"Shut it Clarke and let me speak, God. Anyways she is more or less right. I love to do everything, but I focus on soccer, basketball, and track for Ark High."

Raven snorts at this, "Please she's being modest. She is captain of the girls' varsity soccer team, on the varsity basketball team, and is the current state record holder in the 800m for track." At Raven's words, Octavia's cheeks turn a bright red, and we all laugh at her, even Lexa.

"Well Raven here can hack into the Pentagon and my Twitter account!"

"Please, hacking into your Twitter was so easy. The password OisAmazeBallz wasn't that hard to figure out. I didn't even need to use any of my software." That gets Raven a French Fry to the face.

Lexa catches my eye and raises an eyebrow, subtly pointing to the two arguing girls. I just chuckle and mouth to Lexa, 'Tell you later.' She nods and turns back to Octavia and Raven who somehow has Octavia in a headlock her cheeks ablaze.

'Maybe the rumors were wrong about her.' I think to myself, 'She does seem to have some kind of past baggage attached to the wreck she was in, but so far she doesn't seem too bad, just a little closed off.'

My thoughts are interrupted when a French Fly hits me in the face.

"What the hell?!" I yell at Octavia who has a devious look on her face.

"Its 7:50 Clarke, time to go home and shower because trust me you need one."

This gets Octavia a nicely placed kick to the shin.

"Shut it Blake, you don't smell any better. Oh, and did you give anyone a concussion again today?" I throw back at her. Long story short, Octavia got to into practice about a week ago and kicked the ball a little too hard into her teammates head. The girl is fine now, but Raven and I swore not to let her live it down until the season ends.

Lexa and I say goodbye to Octavia and Raven on the fourth floor. When we get back to our room, I hand Lexa the other key and then throw my dirty clothes into my hamper. I usually do all my laundry on Sundays, but sometimes I end up barrowing some of Raven's clothes on Mondays. I then grab some sweat pants, another t-shirt, and a towel from my trunk that rests on the floor at the end of my bed. I head to the bathroom, but then turn and face Lexa. She must feel my eyes on her again because she turn to me holding similar clothes to mine.

"Just wanted to let you know, we have our own bathroom, which is really lucky most everyone else has to use the communal ones. I usually shower at night cause you know practice and what not. I don't take long, not like Raven." I mutter that last part because Raven literally takes an hour in the bathroom, even if she's just showering. I notice a slight curl to Lexa's otherwise stoic lips and can't help the smile that appears on my own lips.

I quickly shut the door behind me and lean up against it. 'God damn it Clarke! There is no way you are going to have a crush on your roommate, no way. You can't do that to yourself, not with everything going on! But… have you seen Lexa! Good Lord! Those abs! And her eyes…' The internal conversation continues the whole time I'm in the shower, after I get out and Lexa in, and it doesn't end until I get socked in the face, with actual socks. I look over to where Lexa is sitting against her wall, computer on her lap an amused expression on her beautiful face. 'No brain stop that!'

"Sorry I kind of zones out."

"Yeah I noticed," she replies her voice a little lighter like she's trying to hide a laugh, "I was trying to ask you what's up with Raven and Octavia."

I can't help but laugh then, which makes Lexa confused, but I quickly explain, "Okay so here's the deal. Raven, Octavia, and I have been friends since we were in the crib, we did everything together, always went to the same school. Well probably half way first semester of Freshman year, I stated to notice that Raven would always watch Octavia really closely at her soccer games. At first I just thought it was because they were great friends, but then I noticed Octavia would always sit really close to Raven, like not friend close or even best friend close, like basically in her lap." That gets a snort out of Lexa and I can't help but smile myself, 'Yeah you're so screwed Griffin.'

"And whenever I tried to ask either of them about it, they would always turn pink then tell me I was seeing things. Then right before Christmas break, Bellamy held this huge party," an eyebrow raise from Lexa, "I'll tell you all about that later." Lexa just nods and I continue.

"So we're a good 3 hours into this party, most everybody there are either hammered beyond belief, or high off their rocker. But there in the corner of the barn we're in, is Octavia and Raven sucking face." That gets a small laugh from Lexa and I can't help but want to hear it again. "When they finally break apart, I swoop in and grill them. Turns out they were both completely sober and used the atmosphere of alcohol and drugs so that no one would notice."

"So they are together then?" Lexa asks still looking a little confused. And I just sigh.

"Technically they are, but the school is really big against LGBT and same gender relationships so they're not out to anyone except their close friends and teammates, all which support them. I don't know if you've heard yet, but last year two football players got expelled because they went public with their relationship. All of the students and most of the teachers were in an uproar about it. Professor Gustus and Indra were furious with the administration, apparently they were two of our better players, really nice guys too…"

"How can the administration even do that?" Lexa asks looking more than just a little concerned about the whole matter.

"Beats me. Raven looked into all of the school rules and policies right after it happened to see if she could find anything about it, but there was nothing. She even got a copy of the contract you sign when you send in registration stuff, but there was nothing their either." The room goes quite for a while before I snap my fingers and look back over to Lexa who's now looking at me again.

"Bellamy is throwing a party this Saturday night as a kind of welcome back and get to know you thing. I was wondering if you wanted to go." 'With me,' I add in my head.

"Um, I don't know Clarke. I didn't really bring any kind of party clothes with me…"

"That's okay, these things aren't meant to be fancy or anything, just somewhere to hang out, meet new people and drink the night away and not get caught. Did you bring jeans and top?"

"Yeah, I brought a couple pairs of jeans and a few nicer shirts, why?" Lexa does look really confused and it's soooo cute. 'Damn it Griffin, you're never going to get over her are you?'

"That's all you need. At least that's what most everyone always wears anyways." Before I can add anything else, I hear footsteps in the hallway. I snap my head around to look at the alarm clock, it reads 1:39 AM.

"Shit, shit, shit," I hiss as I jump up off my bed, snap the lights off and then literally jump back into bed.

"Clarke, what's going on?" I hear Lexa call out.

"Pretend you're sleeping, quick!" And just in time too as the door to our dorm room opens some teacher pokes their head in and then closes the door again. I wait until I can no longer hear their footsteps walking in the hall before slowly sitting up and turning on my bed side table. I look over to see Lexa sitting up as well, looking really confused now.

"What the hell was that Clarke?" She asks me.

"That," I say as I move all my homework crap off my bed and onto the floor which Lexa mirrors, "Was the nightly checks. Usually around 1:30 in the morning, teachers go around to all of the dorm rooms to make sure we're all in bed with the lights out. If we're not, it's instant detention for a week unless you have some really good excuse like you're sick or something."

"But why have them at all?"

"They are to encourage everyone to get plenty of sleep. They used to be at midnight, but then too many kids were getting detention for doing their homework. Now if you have to work late, you have to listen for the monitors, wait till they leave, and then finish. It's stupid, but it's also how they catch a lot of Freshmen with illegal substances or doing things they're not supposed to be doing." Lexa snorts at that.

"Yeah I agree. They don't talk about it at orientation for that reason and none of us upperclassmen ever say anything because we find it really funny to see all of the Freshmen in detention the first few weeks."

The room gets silent after that and I look over to Lexa's bed where she's laying down just staring at the ceiling. I then look back to the alarm clock, its past 2. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding and lay down too. After a few minutes I reach over and turn off my bedside lamp.

"Thanks for everything today Clarke."

"No problem Lexa, just glad you seem to like it here so much." I hear her hum a little in agreement and it sends a wave of warmth through me.

"Goodnight Clarke."

"Goodnight Lexa."

 **Ooooo, so that happened. The next chapter will be out tomorrow.**


	4. Explanations and Vodka

I wake up covered in sweat, shaking, and gasping for breath. Another nightmare, what a shocker. The difference this time, there's someone else to witness it.

"Clarke, are you okay?" Comes the quiet gravelly voice from not across the room like I would have thought, but right next to me.

I take a moment to compose myself before I even try to attempt an answer. "Um, yeah I'm okay. Thanks." Lexa doesn't look convinced, but I also see understanding in her eyes, something I never see when I wake other people up with my nightmares. I wonder if she has them too.

"Sorry to wake you," I look over at the alarm clock, it reads 5:32AM, "You can go back to bed. Classes don't start until 8, so you could get more sleep if you want." Lexa just snorts and I raise an eye brow.

"Sorry didn't mean to offend you but, I get up at 5:30 every morning anyways, it's kind of become a habit…" She trails off, a far off look in her eye.

"What are going to do until classes start, or the cafeteria opens? Which is at 7."

"What I always do," Lexa says as she moves back to her side of the room and starts to riffle through her trunk, pulling out workout clothes by the look of it. "Go run 3 miles, do some lifting, maybe some football drill or some track drills, depends what I feel like doing."

I watch as she pulls off her sleep clothes and pulls on her workout gear. "Why though? You have football practice from 4 until 7, 5 days a week. Isn't that enough?"

I hear her sigh and she turn to look at me, "Clarke, when you're a girl playing a man's sport with other men, you have to everything you can to keep an edge on them. I guarantee you, not one of them is up right now thinking about running or lifting or going through drills. Why do you think I'm so good? I work my ass off, I don't stop, I can't…"Again I see that far off look in her eyes, but before I can say anything, Lexa's turning to the door.

"I'll see you in P.E. Clarke." And then she's gone. I can't help but groan as I fall back against my bed and think about the conversation we just had. The more I think about what she said, the more I can't help but think there was a lot of double meaning in her words.

Before I can think about it too much, there's a knock at the door. "What the hell, it's 6 in the God damn morning." I mutter to myself as I shuffle over to the door, but before I can open it Octavia and Raven are bursting into my room still in their pj's.

"What the actual hell!" I yell at them.

"Clarke, keep it down, you wouldn't want to wake up your neighbors would you." Octavia whispers. I roll my eyes as the two girls plop down on my bed as I close my door.

"Why are you guys here? It's 6, in the morning, on the second day of school, think about that for a moment."

"Clarke chill. We're well aware what time it is." Raven assures me.

"Well why the hell are you guys in here then?"

"Well, I had to take a piss and while I was coming back, I saw Lexa sneaking around. So I went back to our room, woke Raven up and told her."

"Right then I said 'Well what do you want me to do about it' and Octavia was like 'Go ask Clarke, she is Lexa's roommate, ask her why Lexa's sneaking around before the sun even rises.' And now we're here, so tell us Clarke, why is Lexa sneaking around at 6 in the morning?"

I let out low sigh, "I had a nightmare and either woke Lexa up, or she was already up. Apparently she gets up at 5:30 every morning to do extra training; run 3 miles, lifting, and football or track drills."

Octavia lets out a low whistle and Rave just shakes her head. "Why the hell would you put yourself through that kind of hell? Get up ridiculously early workout, have to come back here and shower, go to classes, then P.E. with Indra, and then a full 3 hours if not more of football practice. And for what, to do a little bit better on the grid iron? I really don't see the appeal."

"Raven, you need to shut up. You have no idea what Lexa has been through, what she's still going through. It's her way of dealing with what happened and how else do you expect her to keep up with guys that are 2 times her size and not get hurt? Okay?"

At least Raven has the grace to look guilty. "Whoa Clarke, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you or Lexa. Look Clarke, I'm really sorry." The room falls into silence and I let it go on for a while.

"It's okay Raven, you didn't know, I mean how could you?" At my words Raven and Octavia look even more guilty.

"Guys, what did you do?" I whisper yell at them.

"Clarke listen, I just wanted to know more about Lexa, so I might have asked Raven to do some digging into her records…"

"What!?" I actually yell.

"Keep it down Clarke, people are still sleeping! But yeah Octavia asked me to dig a little deeper. You won't believe what I found though." I cross my arms and lean back against the bathroom door looking between Raven and Octavia with as much disappointment as I can muster.

"Look I found nothing at first, no records what so ever. It's like her life before New Year's Eve of her Sophomore year was erased, gone. Obviously I thought this was really suspicious, so naturally I did some more digging. It turns out that she was arrested her Freshman year for beating up a couple of guys on her football team. She claimed they were harassing her and someone named Costia. I'm not sure who that is but there was something else. You know how everyone is talking about New Year's Eve, well I found out what happened. Lexa was in this huge car crash with 4 other vehicles. She was driving, but she wasn't alone." At that I perk up at bit. Lexa didn't tell me that part of the story.

"That girl Costia was in the passenger seat and Lexa's parents were in the back of the car. Apparently they were supposed to be going to a family's New Year's Eve party. A drunk driver t-boned their car on the passenger side sending their car into the middle of a busy intersection where it got hit by two other cars and then a third plowed into the whole mess. According to the medical files, her parents were reported dead at the scene while Lexa and Costia were rushed to the hospital. Costia died on the way there and in the file it says and I quote, 'the driver of the most damaged car,' it's talking about Lexa, 'would not let the paramedics take the passenger of the same car away from her. After the passenger was presumed dead en-route to the hospital, the driver would not let the paramedics take her body,' end note. But that's not all."

But I cut Raven off before she can say anything else. "Raven. Please. Shut up. Lexa told me about the accident last night. I saw the scars while we were changing after practice yesterday. She didn't tell me all the details, but it's none of my business if she doesn't want to tell me. She is obviously still hurting from what happened, hell she still has to go through physical therapy. And the emotional tole on her, losing both of her parents and either a really close friend or her girlfriend dying in her arms, in the same night, while she was driving the car, what kind of hell do you think she goes through every day. And now everybody is talking about the accident again, what do you think that's putting her through. It would be like if everyone brought what happened to my dad every day!" My throat instantly closes and I can feel the tears, but somehow I manage to swallow them down.

"I honestly don't care if Lexa's been arrested, it's none of my business to know what happened to her in the past unless she tells me. And I'm not going to change my opinion about her just because you told me because I really don't care. Do you even know her, the real her? Not the one that all the rumors are about, or the one that you had to dig up in buried files. Have you even made an effort to try and get to know her? No, that's what I thought. Well I have and God damn it if she's a little closed off at first, but when you get past that, you see the real her, the one that has been through hell and back and is somehow still sane, somehow still a varsity quarterback and track athlete, she's just like me, broken on the inside and dealing with it the best way she can." Raven and Octavia sit in open mothed shock.

The door suddenly opens and in walks Lexa, covered in sweat, loose strands of hair flying around her face, and mask firmly set in place. She doesn't bother to look at Octavia or Raven, but focuses her intense gaze on me.

"Raven, Octavia, leave. Now!" I spit at them, chest still heaving from what I don't know. Adrenalin, anger, sadness?

When they finally leave and the door is shut and locked behind them, Lexa finally speaks. "I heard everything Clarke. I don't have an ID yet so I couldn't get into the weight room. I thought I'd come back here. How the hell did Raven get into my files, my medical records?" Now that Octavia and Raven are gone so is the mask. In its place is burning anger but also extreme sadness and that broken look is back in Lexa's eyes.

I gulp before answering her. "Raven is a ridiculously good hacker. She got into the Pentagon once. Apparently Octavia wanted her to do more digging on you." I decide in that moment that I can't do this conversation completely sober, so I bend down open my stash and pull out two bottles of vodka. I offer one to Lexa who takes it without hesitation. She unscrews the top and takes several large swallows, not even making a face. I knock back my own mouthful and let the burning sensation fill my mind for the moment. But it's broken by Lexa's raspy voice.

"I would have told you eventually Clarke, I'm not sure why, but I would have. You see, I don't tell people a lot about me for a reason, it always hurts too much. I don't trust people because they're just going to leave me eventually. I've found that not feeling is the only thing that works to keep it all at bay, the flashbacks, the guilt, the anger, the sadness, the heart break, the screams, the blood, all of it."

"Is that why you wear a mask all of the time. So you don't feel?"

"Yes Clarke. That's why, but also because I got a reputation. I'm sure you have heard of my nickname, the Commander," I nod, "After the accident and after I got out of the hospital, I always wore my mask and people just started to associate that with the Commander, strong, unbreakable, stoic, demanding respect, and that's what I got. At that point in my life, Clarke, that's all I wanted. I didn't want people to know that I was hurting or broken, I wanted them to think I was fine, I was okay, and it worked and they left me alone. People didn't always ask how I was doing or if I needed anything, they didn't give me pity but they gave me space which at the time was all I wanted."

"By why not start over here, why not drop the mask and let people in? You could start over, a new school, a new life here."

"It's not that simple," Lexa sits down on her bed and stakes a couple more pulls from the bottle, "My reputation follows me. Polis has played you guys 3 times last year in football and we always went to the same track meets as you, people saw me and people talk. When you're different from the rest, people find out and they don't easily forget." We sit in silence for a while until Lexa breaks it again.

"Do you really not care that I was arrested for beating my own teammates up?"

"Like I said, it's none of my business and I'm sure you had a pretty good reason. But can I ask, who was Costia?"

I watch as Lexa's body goes rigid at the name and I'm about to tell her to forget it when she finally answers. "She-she was my girlfriend, since the summer before Freshman year. We met in middle school and we just clicked. She was my saving grace, the one thing that kept me going, and I would do anything for, even beat up my teammates and get arrested. I loved her Clarke, and I held her as she died. I watched as she took her last breath, as the life drained out of her eyes, and as my heart shattered into a million pieces." There are tears slowly rolling down Lexa's cheek, falling into her lap. And the silence is heavy and I have this urge to hold Lexa as tightly as I can and never let her go, to make sure she never hurts again. But I don't because I know she doesn't want it, and I understand because I wouldn't want it either.

"My father was the governor. He died 2 weeks before the beginning of summer Freshman year. He was murdered, shot through the heart on the Capital steps on a Tuesday after work. The police caught the gun man, but they got into a shoot off, the police killed him. When they went to his apartment, they found paperwork tying him and someone in the Capital building together. It took them a month to figure out it was my mother who had hired him to kill my father. By that time she had been instated as temporary governor in my father's place. She did it just so she could take his place, so she could have the power he had. And for what? A stupid chair in a large white building? She was taken to prison and I moved here early. I had already gotten in here and the alternative was going into the foster care system, I don't have any other relatives that could have taken me in. So I've lived here since, all year long unless Raven or Octavia invites me to their houses for breaks or a couple weeks during the summer." And with that, I take 3 or 4 more pulls from my now half empty bottle. And again the room is silent until Lexa breaks it.

"They gave me a similar choice. Once I got out of the hospital, someone from the foster care system came to me and told me either I accept the offer from Ark High and go there next year or I would go into the system. And so I chose here. They let me stay with a close family friend, Anya, since I don't have any relatives that could take me either, to finish the rest of the school year and continue physical therapy during the summer. And to see a psychologist and talk about my feelings." I snort at that and Lexa nods her head in agreement. "Yeah our sessions mostly consisted of how pissed off I could make the guy by keeping the conversation moving in circles and never answering anything he asked me." She pulls from her own bottle again which is also half empty.

"So do you have them too, nightmares?"

"Every night. There's never a night I don't have at least one. But I always wake up at 5:30 in the morning and can never get back to sleep." Another pull on her bottle.

"So that's really why you're awake that early?" I take another pull on my own.

"Yeah, I just figured I might as well be productive with all my free time." She scoffs. "And you get them too."

It wasn't a question. "Most every night, some nights worse than others. They never end and they never will." But before Lexa can say anymore, the alarm clock sitting on bed side table starts to go off.

"Shit, it's already 7:15. The cafeteria closes at 7:50." But neither of us move and after this morning, I really don't want to go to classes today and I'm sure the same goes for Lexa. But then someone starts pounding on our door to hurry up if we don't want to be late, blah, blah, blah. Eventually Lexa stands walks over to me, hands me the almost empty bottle and mutters something about taking a quick shower. I take the opportunity of Lexa being in the bathroom to take a couple more drinks, put the bottles away, and get dressed. By the time I do all this, Lexa is already done with her shower and is pulling on her own uniform.

It's going to be a really really long day.

 **Well that was unexpected, or did you guys expect something like that to happen? Stay tuned for more juicy plot and don't worry, I didn't forget about the party on Saturday, that'll be coming soon. The next chapter will be out tomorrow.**


	5. Cage Fighting

**What great plot in the last chapter, hope you're ready for some more! As always, please let me know what you thought and if there are any errors, let me know.**

As I guessed it turned out to be a really really long day. I completely ignored Octavia and Raven in AP Political Science, I had a pounding headache from all the vodka, I'm surprised my teachers didn't breathalyze me in the middle of class, I threw up in P.E. while playing basketball, our lifting test was moved to tomorrow, I fell asleep in drawing, missed lunch, again ignored Octavia and Raven for the rest of the day. But things changed during AP Antimony.

Lexa walks into class just as the bell rings and takes the seat next to me. Professor Gustus starts explaining about a project that will be due in 2 weeks that we need a partner for. Lexa and I have the same idea and turn to each other at the same time which causes one of those rare moments when Lexa's eyes would flash with emotion. The moment's broken when Cage calls out from behind me.

"Hey Griffin why don't we work together? You could do all the work and I can watch you!" This is apparently really funny to his man posy who start to crack up.

"Sorry Cage, but I have a real partner this time." I made the unfortunate mistake of getting pared with him last year for a project. I did all the work and he took all the credit.

"What, you and the Commander over there? Do you want to have to rely on someone who has been arrested before?"

"Why don't you fuck off Cage? I'm sure she'll be a better partner than you ever were." Cage's man posy lets out a loud 'Oooooo' like we're in the fifth grade or something.

"Shut up!" Cage screams at them. "You better watch it Griffin! My father is a very powerful man and if you cross me, I'll make sure your life is a living hell."

"You can go shove your stupid threats up your ass Cage, I've heard enough of them to last me a life time." Apparently Cage doesn't like being talked back too.

"Oh Griffin, you better watch what you wish for." And with that he gestures to his man posy to advance or whatever like we're not in the middle of class and instead in some mobster movie. But before anyone else could do anything, Lexa's out of her seat and charging to meet them.

She meets the first guy, ducks his first wild swing then catches his arm on the second one, twisting it back and sending him flying over her shoulder. But the guy behind him catches her in the face with a left hook making her real back. I'm pretty sure I yell her name, but I stand transfixed as she recovers, kicks the guy's right knee and on his way down smashes him in the jaw with a killer upper cut. You could hear the pop of his jaw across the room. The last guy in Cage's man posy is the biggest. He must be 6' 8" and at least 275 or 300 pounds. He grabs Lexa from behind, pinning her arms to her sides. As she struggles to get out of his grip, Cage steps up to face her.

"Well, well, well, The Commander has some fight in her, doesn't she? We'll just have to fix that, can't have people braking the natural order of things." He steps close and whispers in Lexa's ear, "Meaning we can't have a girl taking the position made for a man. Do you think they'll let you play if you have a broken face?" Cage steps back, brings back his fist and slams it into Lexa's face, over and over again. After several minutes of this, he finally stops and the room is silent. I look around for Professor Gustus because how could he let this go on!? But I can't find him anywhere. I start to make my way to Cage, to do something when I'm grabbed from behind. It's the first goon Lexa took out. He clamps onto my arms and holds me still much like the one still holding Lexa.

I watch helplessly as Cage starts pounding against Lexa again and not just her face this time, her stomach and ribs too. And I can't help but cry out for someone to do something, anything, but no one moves, no one dares to. Cage finally pulls back again, hair crazy, eyes wild, his knuckles covered in blood, splatters of it cover his white shirt.

"See!" He calls out to the class room. "This is what happens when the order is broken." He turns back to Lexa. "Got anything to say, oh great Commander?"

I watch as Lexa raises her head, looks Cage right in the eye, and spits in his face. "Got to hell." She then stomps on her captor's foot causing him to release her. Lexa delivers a mean blow below the belt, causing him to drop his head which meets her knee as it comes up to smash him in the face. He drops like a rock. The guy who's holding me lets go to make for Lexa, but I grab his arm, twist it behind his back then take a text book off the nearest desk and smack the back of his head, knocking him out.

As I look back up, I hear a cry from where Cage was last standing, and to no surprise Lexa is slowly advancing on him. Cage keeps trying to back up, but he finally hits the wall. Lexa wastes no time. She grabs a hand full of his blood splattered shirt, 'her blood,' I think to myself, and shoves him hard against the wall.

"If you or one of your goons ever touches or so much as looks at Clarke again, I will personally make sure no one will recognize you, got it?" She snarls in his face. Cage like the coward he is, nods his head vigorously. Lexa finally drops him to the ground and turns her back to Cage. She only takes a few steps when she turns around and nails him right in the face dropping him where he stood. I watch a couple feet away as her chest heaves up and down, and that's the moment Professor Gustus decides to walk back in.

"Sorry class, I just had to make a few extra copies of the worksheet…" He trails off as he finally looks up at the room he's returned to. "What the hell happened in here?!" He cries out. That's when everyone starts talking at once.

I quickly make my way over to where Lexa has collapsed in a chair. When I reach her, my stomach twists and churns. Her face, her shirt, even her pants are covered in blood, and it only keeps coming. I carefully move to her side and slide my arm right arm around her waist, careful not to touch any places that Cage hit. With her leaning heavily into my side, I start to make my way to the door. But before we manage to slip out, a heavy hand lands on my shoulder, stopping me cold. I slowly turn around again careful not to aggravate any more of Lexa's wounds.

"Clarke what happened in here? Why are there 4 boys unconscious on the floor and why is Lexa covered in blood?" Professor Gustus questions, arms crossed over his chest, glowering down at me.

"Sorry Professor, but I really need to get Lexa to the nurse's office. I'm not sure of the damage, but she isn't doing too well at the moment." To further prove my point, Lexa's knees finally give out and the only reason she doesn't hit the floor's because Professor Gustus grabs her other arm and sits her in a chair. I watch as he looks her over, looks back to me, sighs then yells at one of the other football players in the class.

"Lincoln! Get your ass over here and help Clarke carry Lexa to the football locker room." He then turns to me as the boy, Lincoln crosses the room. "Clarke, the nurse isn't here yet and the trainer doesn't get here until 6. Lincoln's ID will get you in the locker room. The first room you enter is the training room and no one should be in there yet. I need you to take care of Lexa while I take care of this mess. I know you are more than qualified to do so. I'll come by as soon as I can. From what I've heard so far, you and Lexa shouldn't be in much trouble considering you two were defending yourselves from 4 guys. Now go before more people come see what all the commotion is about." With that Professor turns back to the class and tries to reestablish order.

I turn to Lincoln. "On three okay?" He nods his head as we move to either side of Lexa. "One, two, three!" We get her up and Lincoln quickly guides us out of the main building and the hundred feet or so to the football locker room. He turns ever so slightly when we reach the door and presses his hip to the sensor. The lock clicks and we push through the door. Like Professor Gustus said, the first room is the training room, but by the looks of the rest of the locker room, no one else is here.

"Let's put her on one of the tables." I tell Lincoln. He does as I say and carefully sets a now unconscious Lexa down on a nearby table as I move around the room gathering the things I might need to fix this mess.

"Can I help you with anything?" Lincoln asks as he takes a seat next to Lexa. I set down my current arm full of supplies on the table next to Lexa and check it over.

"Yeah, can you get like a couple of bowls or buckets of warm water and some towels? And maybe some extra clothes? Preferably loose fitting." I look over Lexa's and note that'll probably have to cut them off.

"Yeah, I'll be right back." He goes through the door to the actual locker room part of the building. While he's gone I decide to start checking out Lexa's injuries. I first pull off her shoes, tie, and belt. I then grab the pair of scissors I found and start to cut off her shirt. Luckily, she's wearing a sports bra, so I won't feel bad leaving her uncovered when Lincoln comes back. As I do so, I find more and more bruising and blood.

"Shit." I mutter under my breath.

"What's wrong?" Lincoln asks from behind me causing me to jump a little. I turn back to look at him. He has a bucket of water in each hand and some clothes thrown over his shoulder. I gesture for him to come over and see. As he gets close enough to make out the bruising and blood, he sucks in a harsh breath.

"Fuck! I'm going to kill Cage for this!" He swears as he puts the buckets and clothes down and steps back, starting to pace the room, every once in while stopping and punching a locker.

I ignore him as I go back to inspecting the rest of Lexa's wounds. There's not much more I can make out with all of the blood so I grab a towel and dip it into one of the buckets of warm water. I then slowly start to clean off the blood that covers Lexa's body.

The more blood I clean off, the more injuries I start to see. Her face for one, is a mess. Her nose is definitely broken, she has two black eyes, her lip is busted in at least three different places, there's severe bruising all along her jaw and cheek bones, and several large gashes that'll need stitches. One right above her right eyebrow, one under her right eye, and one running from under her left eye to her jaw. For the time being, I tape thick gauze pads over the gashes to slow the bleeding and move to her chest and stomach which didn't escape injury either.

The most damage I find is extensive bruising to her ribs, upper chest, above her breasts, and her abdomen. There are a couple places where the skin has broken, but they shouldn't need stitches. I thoroughly clean the places where the skin has broken and the area around it then apply antibiotic cream and clean gauze.

"Lincoln, please hold Lexa up while I wrap her ribs." He does as I say and I gingerly pass the roll of thick gauze around the most heavily bruised section of her chest. When I'm done Lincoln carefully lays Lexa back down.

"Is there anything else I can do?"

"Yes. I'm going to have to stitch up the gashes on her face," I tell him while I prepare a needle, thread, and several syringes of general anesthetic.

"What do you want me to do?" He asks skeptically.

"I need you to hold Lexa down while I do it. It's going to hurt and if she wakes up, I don't want her thrashing around causing more problems. Her ribs and abdomen are badly bruised and I don't want her making things worse." I tell him.

I grab a pair of latex gloves, break open the seal on one of the suture kits, and uncap the first syringe. I pull off the gauze over the gash on her eyebrow and disinfect the area.

"Ready?" Lincoln nods as he climbs onto the table, grabs Lexa's arms, and presses most of his body weight against her legs.

I say a silent prayer to whatever might be out there listening and insert the needle into the skin close to the gash on both sides. Luckily Lexa doesn't wake up and I wait a few minutes for the drug to numb the skin. I mutter a quick apology to Lexa as I then start to stitch up the first gash.

I manage to finish the first gash without Lexa waking up. I cut off the excess thread, tie off the end, and rip open another kit. I repeat the whole process on the gash under her right eye. Miraculously, Lexa stays out for that one too. Now for the last gash which also happens to be the biggest. It stretches from right below her left eye to the edge of her jaw. I make sure to clean the area well and inject the anesthetic in multiple places.

Unfortunately, as soon as I start stitching, Lexa wakes up. I immediately stop. She looks around frantically and tries to move her arms and sit up. Lincoln does his job and holds her down. Before she can say anything, I move so that she can see me and start to tell her what is going on.

"Hey, Lexa, it's okay, you're safe, I'm safe, we're safe, okay? We're in the football training room. Lincoln is here, he's holding you down so you don't hurt yourself anymore. You got hurt pretty bad and I'm taking care of you okay? I have to finish stitching up a big gash on your face." I carefully press a finger to the side of the gash and trace it so Lexa knows where it is. "I already numbed it and started stitching. It won't take me long to finish, but you have to hold still, okay? Do you trust me to do this?"

I finally see Lexa start to calm down and she slowly nods. "Okay Clarke, I'll hold still. And Clarke," I look down at her, meeting her eye, "I do trust you." With that she gives me one more nod and clenches her jaw shut tight.

"Okay, I'm going to start again." And I do, but when I only get half way done when the door to the training room flies open and football guys start to file in, shouting and laughing, pushing each other around. When they see me bent over Lexa's face, needle in hand and Lincoln holding her down, they all freeze.

"What the hell is going on?" Someone I don't know shouts. Before I can say anything, Bellamy pushes his way to the front and takes in the scene.

"Clarke, what's going on? Why are stitching Lexa up, and why is Lincoln holding her down?"

"Yeah hi, Bellamy nice to see you too, but we're kind of in the middle of something and I think Lexa would prefer if I finish this quickly and before the anesthetic wears off." I say as my reply and turn back to Lexa.

It only takes me maybe 10 more minutes to finish the rest of the stitches, cut the excess thread, and tie off the end. When that's done, I pull off my gloves, wipe down all the gashes again, and then apply some antibiotic cream to each.

"You can get off now Lincoln." He gingerly gets off Lexa, making sure not to bump her and jumps off the table.

I start to clean everything up as I address the now full training room.

"Well, to start my name is Clarke and Lexa and I are roommates and we have P.E. and AP Anatomy together. What you might be wondering is 'what happened and why am I stitching up your new quarterback.'" Lots of head nodding and grunting around the room. So I give them the brief version of what happened in Anatomy class and as soon as I mention Cage, most of the team bristles. By the end of my short recount of the events that happened an hour ago, most of them look ready to rip Cage's head from his body.

"As for why I'm stitching Lexa up, for one the nurse isn't here and your trainer doesn't get here until 6." It's only 4:15. "Also I'm studying to go into pre-med for college and have done a lot of extra courses during the summer, one of which included advanced first aid where they taught us how to stitch up skin wounds." This seems to satisfy the team enough and now they all just look warily to where Lexa still lays on the table, chest barely moving.

Bellamy speaks finally speaks up again, "So Lexa took on 3 of Cage's goons by herself and knocked out Cage in one punch?"

"Yep, but can I get a couple of you guys to carry Lexa back to our dorm room so she can get some rest and I can finish checking out her chest wounds, in ya know, private?" A few guys immediately step forward and Lincoln grabs a stretcher from the wall. Bellamy instructs them what to do and then assigns a few guys to carry a couple of boxes of supplies up to our dorm for me.

As everyone starts moving around and doing what they were assigned to do and I start throwing anything I might think I'll need into several cardboard boxes, Indra and Professor Gustus walk through the door. No one seems to notice and continue on with their tasks. It's not until Indra blows her whistle that everyone takes notice of their arrival and stops moving.

"Clarke, how is she?" Professor Gustus asks as he and Indra walk over.

"Well, you can look for yourself, but at the moment, she's not doing too hot. 3 large gashes that I had to stitch on her face and severe bruising to her jaw and cheek bones along with 2 black eyes, a broken, nose busted lip, and extensive bruising to her torsos and abdomen. I'm certain that she has more than one bruised rib, but I don't think any of them are broken." I reply, trying to give them as many details as possible. Indra looks like she's going to kill someone when she sees the extent of Lexa's injuries and Professor Gustus looks disgusted.

"Listen up everybody." Professor Gustus calls out, "Those of you who have been assigned to help Clarke continue with what you need to do and when you are done come talk to me, everyone else get in the locker room now! We are going to discuss what has happened today." Everyone quickly does as Professor Gustus says.

I pull Bellamy aside before he enters the locker room. "Will you come tell me what you guys talk about when the meeting or practice is over?"

"Yeah, I'll come by your room when we finish. Do you want me to get Octavia to tell your squad you won't be at practice?"

"If you wouldn't mind. And when you make it by to tell me what went down, would you mind stopping at the cafeteria and picking Lexa and I up some food? I don't think we'll be making it to dinner tonight."

"Of course Clarke. I'll let Octavia know right now and I'll stop by the cafeteria on the way to your room."

"Thanks Bellamy, I really appreciate it. Now you better go." I shoo him towards the locker room.

"See you later Clarke." He calls over his shoulder.

I turn back to the table Lexa's been resting on and now she is securely attached to the stretcher, 2 guys on either side waiting for me to tell them where to go and 2 more guys holding the cardboard boxes I filled with everything I'll need for Lexa. Lincoln is standing off the side not quite sure what to do.

"Lincoln, you can go to the meeting if you want. I really really appreciate all the help you've been with this mess." I tell him.

"No problem Clarke. Just happy I could help." And with that he turns toward the locker room and I gesture for the boys to grab the stretcher and follow me. 'It's going to be a long walk to the dorm,' I think to myself.

 **I would just like to say thank you to everyone who comments, reviews, leaves kudos, follows, favorites, and bookmarks this story. I really appreciate all of you for even reading it in the first place. Just a heads up, I will be in France for the next 2 weeks without my laptop. Yeah sorry about that, but my teacher doesn't want us to bring them. I'm going to keep writing this on paper and maybe type it on my phone or write a ton of chapters before I leave and e-mail them to myself and post them that way, but I wouldn't hold my breath for that. I think my last update will be Sunday morning before I leave for the airport. Please be patient and I promise when I get back, you'll get the biggest update of your lives and it will be worth the wait. Again thank you so much to everyone whose read this story so far, I love all of you!**


	6. What Morphling Brings

**So hope you guys liked that last chapter. Cage totally got what was coming for him, Lexa's fist. This chapter's a little more relaxed and plotey. No one's punch for all you know and it makes your stomach clench with feels. As always, please let me know what you thought and if there are any errors, let me know.**

And a long walk it was.

We turned every head we passed, froze everybody walking past us, and got every question from every teacher we encountered. It took us twice as long to get to Lexa and I's dorm room than it should have.

We eventually made it though.

I had the boys carrying Lexa gently place her down on her bed and then slide her off the stretcher. I had the boys holding my boxes put them on my bed. When everything was in order, I thanked them for all their help and walked them out. As soon as they were gone, I shut the door, slide the dead bolt and the chain into place, and turn back to Lexa who's sitting up slightly watching me. I walk over to the edge of her bed and knee down next to her.

"How are you feeling?" I ask her, gently running my hand over her abs and ribs, feeling for any weird lumps or bulges that could mean blood is pooling internally.

"Everything hurts." She grunts out, hissing as I brush over a particularly sore spot.

"As to be expected." I mutter back. I then get up and start rifling through one of the boxes. I pull out a fluid bag, IV, and hook. I attach the hook to the wall over Lexa's bed making sure it's secure before letting the fluid bag hang off of it. I then kneel back down next to Lexa.

"I'm going to put an IV. You lost quite a bit of blood and I don't want you consuming too much right now with the state of your abdomen. I can also add a Morphling drip for the pain." I carefully take Lexa's left arm, the one closest to the wall and insert the IV needle into the crook of her arm. I then put a piece of tape over it so it'll stay and hook up the fluid line.

"Clarke?" Lexa rasps out.

"Hhhmm?" I hum back as I start to remove the gauze from around Lexa's chest and reexamine her ribs, checking to make sure she doesn't have any broken ribs.

"Why are you doing all of this? You didn't have to do all of this for me. You could have just left it to the trainer."

I let out a shuttering breath before answering her. "I know I didn't have to, but I wanted to. I wasn't going to leave you there for 2 hours if I could do something sooner. I care about you Lexa, crazy as that sounds. And, I mean you being injured is my fault. If I hadn't goaded on Cage, you wouldn't have had to protect me."

"Clarke, it's not your fault that I got hurt. You weren't the one to punch me over and over and over again while I was being held still. And there is no way in hell that I was going to let Cage or his man posy hurt you because believe it or not I care about you to Clarke, crazy as that sounds." As Lexa says this her mask crumbles and I'm left with the most honest face I've ever seen. Lexa's laying it all on the table not bothering to hold anything back. She looks the youngest and most vulnerable I've ever seen her, which granted hasn't been that long, but from all the pictures I've seen and the stories I've heard, is the first time in a long time.

"I know," I whisper, taking her right hand in mine, gently brushing over her bruised knuckles, "I just wish you hadn't gotten hurt so bad or hurt at all for that matter." A mixture of angry and sad tears slowly fall down my cheeks, but they're quickly wiped away by Lexa's soft touch and even after they're gone, her thumb still softly strokes my cheek.

"It's okay Clarke. Trust me, I've been hurt much worse than this. A couple bruised ribs aren't going to keep me out for long."

"That's what I'm worried about." I say, a small smile lugging at my lips and the corners of Lexa's twitch up too.

"Don't worry Clarke, I know what I'm doing," she whispers as she pulls me onto the bed with her. We end up so that Lexa is leaning against my chest and my right arm is draped around her waist, my hand ever so gently running up and down her sore abs and over her ribs while my left hand is holding onto her's, gingerly brushing over her split and bruised knuckles.

It's close to 8 o'clock when there's a knock at the door. Lexa's finally fallen asleep for more than a few minutes and I don't really want to get up. Sadly the knocking doesn't let up and I don't want this persistent asshole to wake her up. I ever so carefully manage to extract myself from the bed without waking her up, she just mumbles something about throwing farther and running faster while shifting to make for the loss of her old pillow, me.

The person at the door hasn't stopped knocking and frankly, I'm about to punch them in the face. 'I hope its Cage.' I think to myself as I unlock the door and throw it open causing Bellamy to fall slightly into our room.

"Oh, hey sorry, I didn't mean to be such an ass with all the knocking, but I wanted to give you this." He holds up a few Styrofoam boxes. I gesture for him to come in and shut the door behind him. I hear him whistle and turn around to look at him.

"Some set up you got here Clarke." He gestures to Lexa's bed and IV line.

I shrug, "She lost quite a bit of blood and I want to keep her hydrated. I'm not sure if I'm going to let her eat yet. Her abdominals are really beat up and I don't want her digesting food making them worse." I take a seat on her bed and take her right hand in mine again, absently brushing my thumb over her knuckles.

"You really care for her don't you?" An empty silence fills the room, only broken by Lexa's soft snores.

"Yeah, I really do." I whisper.

"Clarke, you know it's okay to feel again, that you don't have to push these feelings away? You more than anyone I know deserve to be happy, especially after everything that's happened…"

"I know it is Bellamy, I just don't want to lose anyone else, not again, especially after everything that's happened."

"Clarke, please listen to me." He strides over and takes my other hand in his, kneeling down so that he looks up at me. "I can see that you really like Lexa for obvious reasons, but you actually took the time to get to know her. You gave her a chance when no one else would. And anyone can see that she cares a hell of a lot about you too. Opening up to you, trusting you, defending you from Cage and his man posy God's sake!" I can't help but let out a watery laugh at that. "But Clarke, please don't waste these feelings, not this time. Anyone with eyes can tell you that Lexa feels the same way, it just might take her some time to see that herself."

"You mean that Bellamy? All of it?" I look at him skeptically.

"Of course I do Clarke! I wouldn't waste the energy if I didn't." There's the typical Blake I know, not all that mushy crap.

"Okay, I won't waste them this time."

"Waste what this time?" Hollers out a very loud and not so subtle Octavia.

"Her food that I brought her. I don't want to have to go back to the cafeteria again." Bellamy Blake, always the quick thinker. He stands, gives me a pointed look and walks past Octavia and Raven. When he gets to the door, he turns back.

"Think about what I said Clarke. And I'll tell you about the meeting tomorrow." And with that he walks out of the room, closing the door behind him.

"What the hell was all of that about Clarke?" Raven sends me a questioning look from where she's sat down on my bed.

"We were just talking about how long I think Lexa needs to stay out of practice versus how long she'll stay out of practice." 'Smooth Griffin, very smooth. You're getting better at that.'

"Well I give her 2 days tops." Octavia grunts as she sits down on Raven.

"Yeah, but I think with Clarke's influence she'll stay out 3 days, tops." Raven quips back while she shoves Octavia off of her.

"She really needs to stay out at least a week if not 2. She really did take a hard beating." I look down at Lexa who somehow has managed to stay asleep through all of this noise.

"Okay, oaky, enough with angsty concerned Clarke. Now tell us exactly what happened, every little detail. All we've heard are rumors since school let out and this time we decided to wait until we got the facts to cast judgment." Octavia huffs.

I roll my eyes at her, but start explaining, in excruciating detail exactly what happened in Anatomy class. Half way through I grab a bottle of whiskey from my stash and the food Bellamy brought up. By the end of my story all of my container is empty along with all of the hard to chew, swallow, or digest food from Lexa's. Bellamy had the good sense to get mostly soft food and a container of chicken noodle soup for Lexa, so she still has plenty of food.

"There's no way that Cage is getting off with this one. I mean there are 4 bodies besides his own as evidence and a classroom full of students as witnesses."

"Yeah, but he could just bribe them all and have them say that Clarke or Lexa started the whole thing. I'm sure he's at least considered it by now, if he's conscious." Raven tells Octavia. This causes the two to start arguing about what will happen and whether or not the football team will retaliate. 'Of course they will. They didn't see the looks on the guy's face earlier.' I think to myself.

Movement behind me pulls my attention from my own thoughts back to the present. I tune out Octavia and Raven's bickering and turn to look at Lexa. She's currently looking up at me with a tight smile and I can't help but carefully brush my thumb along her new stitches.

I bend down so that my mouth is right next to her ear and whisper in a low voice, "Do you want me to hook the morphling drip now?" Lexa gives a small nod and I start to pull back, but she grabs the collar of my shirt and pulls me back down.

"Clarke," She says in a strained voice, "don't go."

"Hey, its okay, I'll be right back I promise." I whisper back, but she doesn't let go.

"Lexa please, I need to get the morphling drip if you want the pain to go away." I try to reassure her, but she won't have any of it.

"No Clarke, please don't go." And the look of pure terror and desperation on her face kills me. I finally sigh and relent, letting her pull me back to the position we were in earlier. When we're settled again I turn to my two friends on the opposite bed.

"Raven will you please get me the morphling drip from one of those boxes? It should already be labeled." She nods and moves over to said boxes. "Octavia will you grab the rest of the food there and my laptop and phone? I don't think we'll be going anywhere for a while."

"Sure Clarke." "Thanks," I murmur as I look back down at Lexa who's begun to shake slightly. Raven hands me the morphling drip and another hook. I quickly hang the bag next to the other one and attach the line into Lexa's IV. Octavia then puts the food down on Lexa's bedside table along with my computer, but hands me my phone.

"Thanks guys, but I think you should go for now. I'll call if I need anything. Raven you still have that spare key right?"

"Yeah it's on my key ring back in our room."

"Okay good. I'll keep you guys updated. Goodnight guys."

"Goodnight Clarke. We'll come by in the morning and check on you guys." Raven says.

"Night Clarke." Octavia hollers as she leaves the room, turns off the light, and shuts and locks the door behind her.

I let out a heavy sigh once they're finally gone. Lexa's shaking as stopped now. 'It must have been due to the pain.' I think to myself.

"Hey, Lexa you still there?" I murmur next to her ear.

"Yeah Clarke, I'm here and so are you." She says. Her voice sounds far off, like she's remembering something.

"Lexa, you okay, do you want to eat anything?" I ask, mildly concerned that she's remembering the accident and if this brings back memories of the ambulance ride and the hospital.

"Please just don't leave me here, don't leave me alone, not again." Shit. Shit. Shit!

"Lexa listen to me. You are going to be just fine. I am just fine. I'm not going to leave you okay? I'm going to stay right here with you, I promise." That's when Lexa turn her head and buries it in the crook of my neck and I can feel the tears falling fast and heavy.

"She's gone Clarke! She's gone and there was nothing I could do! She left me alone! I was alone!" She sobs out, choking on every other word.

"Oh Lexa…" I whisper into her thick brown curls. I gently maneuver her so she's mostly sitting in my lap and I can easily hold her close to me. We stay like this for a long time. Lexa crying or mutter obscure phrases into my neck or collarbone while I hold her as tightly as I can and whisper gentle words into her hair.

Her body finally just shuts down from pure exhaustion and she passes into a quiet sleep. When I'm sure she's soundly asleep, gently move us back into a more comfortable sleeping position which ends up me resting underneath Lexa with Lexa's head on my chest. I take out my phone thankful for the auto adjust screen brightness so I don't go blind when I turn it on and wake up Lexa.

I have a dozen or so messages from Octavia and Raven asking how everything's going. I ignore those for the moment. There's one from Bellamy that reads 'Whatever you need, I'll get it for you.' And another a few minutes later, 'If you can, meet me in the library during lunch tomorrow and I'll tell you what happened at the meeting, night Princess.'

I text him back, 'Okay, thank you. If I can, I'll see you there. Night Bell.'

There's also almost 2 dozen more texts from random people, a few squad members asking if everything's okay, some names I vaguely think I know asking what's going on, and more than a few names I don't recognize asking the same thing.

I click back to Octavia and Raven group chat and type out a quick update. 'Lexa's finally asleep. She seems to be resting okay. Come by around 7 and we'll see how she feels in terms of going to class. Talk to you tomorrow, night Rainbow, night Mech.'

Raven texts back almost instantly, 'Okay, sounds good. Night Princess.'

Octavia texts back a few minutes later, 'What Mech said. Night Clarke.'

I then turn off my phone and set it on the bedside table next to the alarm clock that reads 1:45. 'Weird,' I think to myself, 'Why didn't someone come in and check on Lexa and I?' It doesn't keep me up though and I fall asleep a few minutes later.

My dreams tonight are full of blood. Lexa's blood, my father's blood, Raven's blood. It's everywhere, covering ever surface and no matter how hard I try, I can't get it off of my hands. No matter how hard I scrub at it, more just takes its place until I'm drowning in it. Then my nightmare shifts. I'm sitting in my living room at home, watching TV. On the screen is my father getting shot, change the channel but then it's my mother getting arrested. I try to change it again, but it's Raven getting in a car crash. I try once more, but this time its Lexa getting hit over and over and over again by Cage and all I can do is helplessly watch.

I snap awake, tears streaming down my face, chest heaving, but someone is gently brushing my tears away, mutter soothing words into the darkness, and I instantly relax against the body against mine.

"It's okay Clarke, you're okay. It was just a dream, just a dream." Lexa doesn't say how it can't hurt me, she knows that they can.

Once I get control of breathing, I slowly sit up and look over at the alarm clock, 6:30. I groan as I lay back down, pulling Lexa back down with me.

"How long have you been awake?" I ask her quietly.

"I woke up when you started heaving, so not long." She whispers against my chest.

"Sorry I woke you." I whisper into her hair.

"Don't be sorry Clarke. I think last night is the most sleep I've gotten in a while. I slowly nod.

"How are you feeling?"

"Everything still hurts, but it's better than yesterday. My ribs are really sore though." I hum in agreement.

"You'll be sore for a while. The best thing you can do is rest, but I know you won't."

"I know. But I have to go to class, Clarke. It's only the third day of school." Lexa sighs and I feel her body tense up.

"Relaxing will help to," I say as I gently poke her thigh, "But I know you have to go to class. Just take it easy at football practice and P.E. for the next couple of days, and no morning workouts. You can talk with your trainer, but I think they'll agree. I'm sure the most they'll have you do are some stretches."

"Fine, if you insist. Nyko will probably agree with you anyways, he's our trainer." That's when the lock on the door starts to rattle and a few seconds later Octavia and Raven walk in, already in their uniforms.

"Rise and shine bitches!" Octavia yells as she flips on the lights which causes Lexa and I to cry out.

"Damn it Octavia! A little warning next time please!"

"Sorry Clarke the day waits for no one! Now get your lazy asses out of bed and stop cuddling, it's disturbing." I stick my tongue out at her which causes Lexa to laugh then draw in a sharp breath.

"This is going to suck ass." She mutters as I roll out from underneath her.

"Yes, yes it is." I reply while I grab a clean uniform from my trunk and head into the bathroom only feeling slightly guilty leaving drugged up Lexa to the clutches of The Rainbow and Mech. Nicknames for Octavia and Raven we came up with during elementary school, mine's Princess for some weird reason even though I never liked Princesses.

I take a quick shower and throw on my uniform to save Lexa from any kind of interrogation by my best friends.

"Okay, Lexa would you like to freshen up before we leave?" I ask to save her from Raven who was grilling her on what my favorite color is.

"Yes, that would be great." I move back over to the bed and help Lexa sit up. I wrap an arm around her waist, leading her to the bathroom. I set her down on the toilet and go back into the main room to grab her a clean uniform and underwear.

I move back into the bathroom, uniform in hand and close the door behind me. I set her uniform on small cabinet and grab a couple of towels from said cabinet. I look Lexa over and sigh. She cocks an eyebrow asking what's wrong.

"Nothing's 'wrong' but going to have to help you get undressed all of the way and then redressed." Lexa makes an 'oh' face and I just nod.

"It's oaky Clarke, if you don't mind?" I shake my head. 'Why should I mind, I'm just helping out a friend, a friend that I have really strong feelings for, and not in the platonic way that's why.'

So the next 20 minutes are spent carefully pulling the rest of Lexa's clothes off her, washing off any remaining blood, gently cleaning around her stiches, re-bandaging and wrapping everything and then carefully, very carefully getting her back into some clean underwear and her uniform. When we're finally done, I help Lexa to her feet.

Do you think you can make it around school okay?" I worried she'll trip on the stairs and make everything worse.

"I think I'll be able to manage. I can probably ask to leave class early to beat the traffic in the hallways." I nod at her idea and open the bathroom door. Octavia and Raven have fallen asleep on my bed and I look back to Lexa with a mischievous grin.

"Octavia, Raven! Wakeup Rise and shine bitches! Breakfast waits for no one! Now get your lazy asses out of my bed and stop cuddling, it's disgusting!" I hear Lexa try to contain her giggles as best she can and the smile on my lips now is the biggest one I've worn in a long time.

"Fuck off Clarke. We were just waiting for you guys, Jesus." Octavia mumbles as she rolls off my bed and hits the floor, causing more giggles and a groan from behind me.

"Very smooth Rainbow, very smooth." Raven claps.

"Whatever Mech." Octavia grumbles.

"All right enough chatter, food time!" I holler at them as Lexa and I turn to collect out stuff. Raven and Octavia grab their own bags and head for the door. I push Lexa out before me, turn and lock the door, then take her hand as we walk down the 5 flights of stairs to get to the main level.

We make it to breakfast in time to grab the left overs and then run to class. But before I split off with Octavia and Raven to go to AP Political Science, I turn to Lexa.

"Are you sure you're going to be okay? I don't think anyone will blame you for taking a day to recover more."

"I promise Clarke, I'll be okay. If anything happens I'll text you."

"Fine, I'll see you in P.E."

"Bye Clarke." And with that Lexa turns around and heads to her first period class.

 **Hope you guys liked it! And I would just like to say to those people who leave comments, I read all of them and they make my day! I love hearing how the newest chapter made you feel or how much you like the story so far. Every single one means the world to me! Thanks everyone, and stay tuned, I promise as soon as I get back, you'll have a new chapter, you'll get the biggest fucking update of your lives. Thanks so much for all of the support so far and just wait for the next update I promise it will be worth it. The latest a new chapter will be out is on June 19** **th** **, and the earliest will be June 18** **th** **. I promise I won't be ending this story for a while.**


	7. Rainbows, Vomit, and Russian Literature

**I'm back bitches! France was amazing! Absolutely beautiful and tasty! And I got to spend the time with some of my best friends and classmates. If you ever get the chance to travel to a new place, no matter where it is in the world or just around the corner, take the time to enjoy yourself and learn something new about where you are or where you're going. Anyway, with that nugget of wisdom out of the way, here is the next chapter. I hope this was well worth the wait and more will be sure to follow, promise. As always let me know what you think or if I made any mistakes. Love you guys for all of the support and well wishes you guys have given me! Sorry this was a little late. I got really sick on the plane home and spent all of yesterday reliving what I ate for dinner on the plane. Anyways, hope you guys like this chapter and it will hold you over until I get the next one out. (Which should be within 12-16 hours or so)**

I make it in just as the bell rings and hurry over to my seat next to Octavia and Raven.

As Professor Kane starts to explain the financial troubles of Russia and Germany pre-World War I, Raven, Octavia, and I start talking about the whole Cage mess. Turns out him and his goons got detention for 2 weeks while Lexa and I get off free. Apparently getting the shit beat out of you and stitching up your new roommate is punishment enough. The bell eventually rings and we head to P.E.

When we enter the locker room, it's dead silent which is really weird considering the place echoes more that the Grand Canyon and considering Raven, Octavia, and I had to come from the third floor of the main building all the way down to the girl's locker room, there must be people in here already.

We discover the source of the silence when we turn the corner. There standing by her locker is Lexa in her unbuttoned Oxford, tie hanging around her neck, gym shorts already on. She looks up at us with the sound of the locker room door closing and I manage to catch a flash of relief cross her features before it's quickly replaced with her typical mask of indifference. But it was there, it was definitely there.

"Lexa, what the hell are you doing? There is no way that you can do P.E. And we already talked about this. Why are you even changing?" I question while walking over to her so that I'm standing right in front of her.

"Clarke, don't worry, I'm not going to participate, but Indra said I still need to get changed. Something about the uniform being a part of our grade." She tells me in a cool calm voice. It only irritates me more.

"Can you even finish getting changed? You got your pants off and shorts on, but can you get this off," I tug her unbuttoned Oxford, trying to ignore the huge bruises I see underneath, "And your t-shirt on?"

"Um, well no. I was going to ask if you could maybe help me with that part. And uh, if you happen to have some pain killers, I miss that morphling." Lexa says this very quietly into my ear so no one else hears, and when she mentions painkillers I look closely at her eyes, and they betray her controlled exterior. I can see the pain she is feeling throughout her whole body displayed on the surface like a huge neon sign, well for me. If you were anyone else not used to looking for any hint of emotion, you wouldn't notice.

I reach into my purse and pull out an orange bottle of large white pills. I check the label making sure it's the right one, the hand it to Lexa. "Take 2 of these every 8 hours as long as you're not on the morphling drip. I want to hook you back up to the IV again tonight to make sure you stay hydrated. I can attach the drip then if you want. And I suppose I can help you with your shirt." I sigh, but send her a quick wink. "Just let me change real quick."

"Thank you Clarke. I appreciate it." Lexa says as I get my own P.E. clothes on.

"Sure. Wouldn't want to piss off Indra anymore than necessary." I catch a small twitch of her lips and it makes my own rise. "All right, hold as still as you can." I instruct Lexa as I pull her Oxford off. I grab her t-shirt and carefully pull it over her head, gently guiding her arms into their proper holes.

Lexa and I end up being 5 minutes late to the weight room, but when we finally do show up Indra just nods in our direction and turns back to the class.

"All right ladies, obviously we're doing the weight lifting portion of our test today. We will be doing 4 lifts today, same as last year. Pair up and claim a platform, we'll be starting with deadlifts, then cleans, squats and last will be bench press. I want you to do as much weight as possible, but you need to warm up first. Don't start with the heaviest weight possible, work your way up. Be smart and be conscious of your partner." With that, Indra leaves us to partner off. Lexa and I walk over to where Octavia and Raven are standing.

"Clarke you're with me since these two are crippled." Octavia's snide remark is rewarded with a slap from Raven* and a glare from Lexa.

"Fine, if I have no other choice…" I mutter sarcastically.

"Like anyone else could handle your crazy ass Griffin." Octavia snaps back.

"Just shut up and help me put these damn weights on the bar Rainbow." Octavia flinches at her nickname.

"Clarke! You swore not to use it in public!" Oops. But I really don't get why she cares so much. There are far worse things to be called. It's pretty funny how she got that nickname in the first place.

Growing up, Octavia never liked pink, she detested the color and most bright colors. For some reason that all changed in 6th grade. Every opportunity Octavia got she wore bright colors and had tons of rainbow accessories. She still hated pink but would wear everything else. So after a while, Raven and I started to call her Rainbow. It pissed the shit out of her, but it stuck. Beginning of 7th grade year is when Octavia told Raven and I she was gay. We both just kind of laughed, elbowed each other, and asked Octavia if that's what was up with the rainbows. She had looked sheepish but nodded just the same. That night we all went out for ice cream to celebrate O coming out and we all got rainbow sprinkles.

Someone's calling my name and I'm snapped out of my day dream.

"Hey Clarke you in there?" Raven asks while she waves her hand in front of my face.

"Yeah sorry, just kind of zoned out."

"Well you better get in the zone. I plan on beating you this time Griffin." Octavia calls as she sets up at the bar to start her deadlift warm ups.

"Please, you couldn't beat me even in your wildest dreams Blake." I call back, moving over to Lexa as I watch O do 5 warm up reps with 135lbs.

O finishes her reps and I take her place, setting my feet a little more than shoulder's width a part, setting my feet right under my knees. I roll out my shoulders and take a firm grip on the bar, hands directly under my shoulders one hand turned up, one not. I then squeeze my abs and drive through my legs, standing strait up, pausing, then slowly lowering the bar back to the platform. I do this 7 more times, pausing in between each rep.

When I finish warm ups, I help O put more weight on and move back to Lexa.

"You have good form Clarke. Who taught you?"

"Indra taught all of us how to lift freshman year, but I came a couple of times after school so she could give me more personalized instruction. I'm a base for all of our routines so I have to be strong enough to hold our flyers up. It really helped too, lifting."

Lexa nods her head, small smile on her lips, as we turn back to Octavia who just finished her second warmup set.

The rest of class goes by smoothly. I end up beating Octavia in all of the lifts. I got 225lbs for 2 reps in the deadlift while O got 205 for 2. I got 115lbs for 2 reps for the clean, O got 105 for 2 reps. I got 185lbs for 3 reps on squats while O got 165lbs for 3 reps. And lastly for the bench press, I got 115lbs for 2 reps and O got 115lbs for 1 rep. She wasn't too happy about that.

"It's okay O. I've been in the gym all summer, nothing better to do anyways."

"Well you better watch out Griffin, in 8 weeks I'm gunna kick your ass." We take the tests again every 8 weeks, to mark our progress and see if we actually try in class.

"Whatever O." By now we're back in the locker room. I quickly change and go over to Lexa who has her pants and shoes on, but holding her Oxford and tie.

"Need a hand?" I ask coyly.

"I really need two, but if you only have one…" She quips back. I snort and take the Oxford from her and set it on the bench next to me. I then carefully pull the uniform t-shirt over her head, dropping it to the floor, and picking her Oxford back up.

"Hold still, yeah?" Lexa hums as I gently pull the shirt back over her arms. I then button it back up and take the tie from her hands, loop it around her neck, and quickly, deftly make the knot. I finally finish, pulling it snug against her neck and it's not until she breathes out a low sigh that I realize how close we are. But neither of us make move back.

"Clarke…" I hum in acknowledgment. "We need to get to class, but I don't really want to go…" I nod slowly in agreement.

"I know," I whisper, not wanting to break this moment, "I'm meeting Bellamy for lunch in the library to talk about what was said at the meeting, I want you to come with me. What class do you have before then?"

"I have War and Tactical Strategies. It's on the 3rd floor, second room on the right."

"Okay, I'll come get you. I have drawing so I'll be a couple of minutes." I say. Lexa nods, but then I watch as her eyes close and she heaves a few times. I grab her around the waist and sit her down, but Lexa collapses to the ground on her knees and starts to dry heave.

"Shit, shit, shit! God damn it!" I swear as I pull back her hair and rub her back. Lexa empties the contents of her stomach onto the locker room floor, but she doesn't stop heaving.

"Fucking Shit!" I yell. "No, no, no. Come on Lexa, don't do this to, not now. This can't be happening…" I mutter under my breath. I quickly check her vomit, and yep there are several small clots of blood floating in it.

"Fuck!" I scream into the empty locker room. Thankfully the next class started to come in just as I let my most recent string of curses out. The girls, freshmen by the looks of them come running over.

"You two! Go get Indra and bring her back now!" I scream at the two closes girls. They take one look at Lexa and sprint out of the locker room. I then turn Lexa so she's looking up at me. I pull her tie off again and rip open her shirt and peel it off of her. I lay her down on the floor away from the vomit as Indra comes barreling through the door, chest heaving, short hair flying around her head.

"Clarke, what the hell is going on?" Indra calls out quickly making her way to the other side of Lexa.

"Something's wrong, something's very very wrong…" I mutter.

"What Clarke, what's wrong?" Indra asks, her voice full of concern, her face pulled into a grimace at Lexa's state.

"I don't know Indra! I don't know!" I yell back at her, starting to panic.

"Okay Clarke, it's okay. Just take a deep breath and think about everything that you've learned…"

I do as Indra says and take a couple deep breaths. Once I've gotten myself back under control, I quickly run my hands up and down Lexa's chest and abdomen, feeling for something and I finally find something. "There's something surrounding her stomach, here." I say pointing to a particularly bruised section of her abdomen where an old scar happens to be as well. The white of it standing out against the dark black blue of the huge bruise.

"I think it might be the cause of the blood in her vomit." I gesture to said pool.

"What do we need to do then?" Indra asks, looking a little more composed.

"She needs to go see Nyko. He'll know what to do. You need to tell him that he should also run some tests because this shouldn't be happening." I run my fingers over the old scar that's at the center of this new mess.

Indra nods getting up and telling the freshmen to get the stretcher on the wall. They do as she says and I watch as the gently place Lexa on it, but before they leave, Lexa grabs my arm.

"Clarke…" She croaks out.

"Sshhh, I'm here Lexa. They're going to take you to Nyko and you're going to be okay, I promise." I whisper in her ear, gently running my thumb over her stitches.

"Clarke, Clarke… It hurts, it hurts really bad, please don't leave me. Don't leave me Clarke. It hurts!" Lexa whimpers and I feel my heart both shatters and goes ice cold. I'm gunna kill Cage for making Lexa feel this pain.

"I'm sorry Lexa, I have to stay. They won't let me go with you." I look up at Indra and she nods. "I'm so sorry Lexa…" Indra says something to the freshmen and they start to walk out, Lexa crying out as soon as she loses her grip on my arm.

"Clarke. No! Stop! Clarke! Clarke…" She cries as they walk out the door and I can feel the tears falling fast down my cheeks. That's when the bell rings again and I grab my stuff, Lexa's stuff, and run out of the locker room and I don't stop running until I reach the art room. There I grab my notebook, tears still falling, and start to sketch. No one says a word and I'm thankful.

When the bell rings, signaling lunch, I look down at what I drew. It's a beautiful sketch of Lexa in her football practice gear, like her first practice, arm cocked back ready to throw the ball in her hand, muscles tense, sweat shinning, determination set in her brow and her eyes clear, calculating. Her face is unmarred by the large gashes that now cover her face. Her muscles are unaffected by giant bruises, her body whole.

I slam my notebook closed, grab my stuff and run to the library.

When I get there, Bellamy is already waiting for me with 2 brown sacked lunches and a couple of water bottles. He leads me over to a secluded section hidden amongst the shelves. I flop down, scooting up against a shelf and looking up at him. He sits down across from me and hands me a bag and a bottle.

I open the bottle and am happily surprised to find that it's vodka instead of water. I then open the paper bag. There's 2 sandwiches, an apple, and a bag of weed. I grunt as I take out the bag of weed and throw it back at Bellamy.

"You know we can't do that until our seasons are over you ass." He laughs and shoves it in his own bag.

"Now tell me," I say after taking a gulp of the harsh alcohol, "What happened at this meeting Bellamy?"

He sighs and takes his own sip. "Coach Gustus sat us all down, went over the basics of what happened to Lexa and what you did. We were all in an uproar calling for Cage's head and you could see the look of agreement on Gustus' and Indra's faces. But then Coach Gustus said if any of us touched Cage, it would be a 2 week suspension from the team. Of course as soon as Gustus and Indra left, telling us practice would be at its normal time, we all sat together and came up with a plan. There are quite a few of us who have P.E. with the bastard and we're planning something big. I can't tell you in case we get in a shit ton of trouble and you get pulled in. Wouldn't want the Princess to get in any trouble, now would we?" That gets him a punch to the shoulder and a pout at me.

"Well I more or less assumed something like that must have happened, But I wanted to hear it from you."

"Now, Clarke, I know I said we would talk more about last night, but I think there are much more important things that we need to discuss, like maybe what happened during your P.E. class?" I take a long pull from the bottle in my shaking hands before even coming up with an answer.

So I tell Bellamy the whole thing, starting from when we got back into the locker room. He looks like he's about to kill someone, but instead he moves over next to me and wraps his arms around me. I turn into his chest and cry and cry and cry long past the bell for next period, and it's the bell for trig that I finally pull my face out of Bellamy's chest, but neither of us make a move to leave our sack lunch, vodka nest in the Russian history portion of the library.

"Bellamy?" I croak.

"Yeah Clarke?"

"I really like her, and I'm scared Bellamy. I'm scared she's going to be taken too." My voice cracks and I feel the tears coming back, but somehow I manage to swallow them.

"Hey Clarke," he says pulling me into a tight hug, "Everything is going to be okay. Lexa is going to be fine in a week or so and she's going to stay that way. And honestly Clarke, I think she's scared too. Of losing you, of being left alone, but also because she has feelings for you and she doesn't want to lose you. I really think she likes you Clarke and I think you need to tell her sooner rather than later that you feel the same way."

"Okay. Okay." I say nodding my head trying to convince myself. "Maybe at the party Saturday if she's even able to go." Bellamy nods as the last bell rings.

"I really should go to one of my classes today, and I need to talk to Gustus anyways. I'll text you later, after I check on Lexa." We finally manage to get up. Bellamy grabs his bags of weed and shoves it in his lunch sack. I take his half empty bottle of vodka and dump it into my own mostly empty bottle.

"Don't drink all of that before dinner Clarke." He calls out over his shoulder.

"I have class with Cage I'll do as I please Bellamy Blake." I snark back. I can hear Bell snort, but he doesn't turn around again.


	8. Distractions

**How'd you like the last update? Hope it was worth the wait, if not, maybe this one will help. I definitely know the next couple after this will be well worth it, just give me some time to type out all my chapters that I wrote while traveling, edit them, then post them. We did a lot of flying and driving while I was away so I wrote a ton to pass the time. And as a bonus, some of my friends on the trip and my French teacher helped me with some of the ideas and plot lines for the story, so you can blame them too for your emotional roller coaster ride and feels train!**

I make my way slowly to class but still manage to be one of the first ones into class, even beating Professor Gustus.

I take my normal seat and take out my notes, but put my vodka bottle in my purse. My phone buzzes and I quickly grab it to see if it's Lexa or Nyko. It's Nyko.

"Clarke. Lexa is doing just fine now. There was no internal bleeding in her abdomen, despite what the signs show. Based on some tests that I ran and a lot of digging in my old med school journals, the blood in her vomit and the mass surrounding her stomach was mostly likely due to old trauma that her fight with Cage loosened or a onetime occurrence. The mass is gone now, I think her body just reabsorbed it. She's sleeping now, but you should come by after last period. I don't know what you two have been through in your short time together, but she seems to only trust you to stay by her side." I take several deep breaths to keep my cool in front of everyone. I send a quick text back to Nyko.

"Thanks Nyko. I'll see you in an hour."

That's when Cage and his man posy walk in. Cage is sporting a broken nose while his buddies all have some varying level of bruising on their faces. Cage's right hand is also bandaged and seeing it sends a deep rage through me.

Cage takes his normal seat right behind me. He doesn't say anything until Professor Gustus walks through the door.

"Where's that new roommate of yours Griffin? Is she a little roughed up today, couldn't handle the pain?" I clench my jaw and snap my pencil in half, but Cage doesn't seem to notice.

"I know! She's probably skipping class to go rob all of our rooms." Every muscle in my body is tense, coiled tight against my bones.

"Or maybe she's off somewhere brooding like a litt-" He doesn't get to finish his thought because my fist meets his face instead. I grab him by his stupid tie and pull him over the table so his stupid broken nose is inches from my own.

"If you say one more word I will rip out your tongue and sew it back onto your ass. Got it?" I snarl, spit flying into his face. He nods vigorously but I don't let go of his tie. Instead I punch him once more in the face then grab his right arm and hand, jerking his hand up as I smash his arm down, snapping his wrist. He lets out a strangled cry and drops to the ground. I look over at his lackeys and dare them to try anything.

I turn to Professor Gustus who gives me a single nod. "Okay everyone, stay here while I take Mr. Wallace to the nurse. It seems he fell out of his chair and landed on his wrist wrong." No one says a word as Professor Gustus grabs Cage by the arm and drags his crying ass out of the room.

When they're gone, everyone turn to me. I turn around slowly and sit back down in my chair, bringing my hands up to rest on the desk. That's when I notice the blood that coats my right hand. I stand back up, grab my stuff, and leave the room. I try to make my way to the bathroom when someone grabs my arm. Before I can nail them in the face too, Lincoln comes into view. I lower my fist, but he takes it in his hands, carefully inspecting the broken skin on my knuckles.

"Wow Clarke, you have a mean jab. Why don't we go to the training room and I can take care of this for you."

"Sure Lincoln, we can do that." He takes my arm in his and leads me to the locker room.

"Lincoln, I know where the locker room is."

"I know you do. I just thought you might want to hold on to someone."

"What?" But whatever else I was going to say died in my throat because there lies Lexa on one of the training tables, hooked up to 3 or 4 machines, dressed only in her sports bra and compression shorts, eyes closed, chest barely rising off the table.

I feel my knees buckle, but like Lincoln said, he was there to hold on to.

Lincoln leads me over to a bed next to Lexa's and sits me down. He then goes around the room collecting what he needs to clean up my knuckles. But I'm snapped out of my trance when I hear a deep voice behind me.

"Clarke, Lincoln, what are you doing here? Class doesn't let out for at least another half hour and Clarke why are your knuckles covered in blood?" Before I can snark back a reply Lincoln presses a cloth soaked in rubbing alcohol onto my torn skin, wiping away the blood and revealing the messed up and bruised skin underneath.

"Clarke punched Cage Wallace in the face and broke his wrist. I thought it best to clean her up here. I wasn't aware that you were here though. When did you get in Nyko? And how's Lexa doing?"

"Clarke really?" I just shrug as Lincoln starts to wrap my hand. "Well, Lexa is actually doing a lot better. She's stopped puking, and when she's awake, she says she's feeling better. The machines you see were for running the tests that I needed. I can actually unhook them now, I think I got all of the data I need. I actually got in this morning. Caught a late flight last night from home and arrived this morning. Oh and Clarke, you can wake her up if you want. I think she'll be happy to see you." I blush a little as Lincoln finishes wrapping my hand.

Maybe an hour later, when the rest the team shows up for practice, Nyko starts unhooking all of the wires and tubes from Lexa.

"So the tests came back Clarke. There's nothing out of the ordinary, absolutely nothing shows up. This makes me think that what happened today was more of a freak occurrence due to some old trauma that was reaggravated than any condition Lexa needs to worry about. Lexa should be fine to go back to the dorms tonight, but if anything else happens, bring her back here if you can't handle it."

"Thanks Nyko. I'll make sure to keep an eye on her throughout the night."

"All right Clarke, I'll see you later. I have to go wrap 20 ankles and adjust 6 knees now." Nyko lets out a long sigh before heading into the actual locker room yelling at the boys to form some kind of orderly line.

"Are you going to be okay Clarke?" Lincoln asks from behind me.

"Yeah. I'm just going to sit with her until she wakes up. After that, I guess we'll just have to see how she feels." Lincoln nods and heads into the main part of the locker room too.

I turn back to Lexa and nearly jump off my chair when I see her eyes open and alert.

"Oh hey Lexa, didn't know you were up. How are you feeling?" I say trying to get my heartrate back under control.

Lexa clears her throat, but her voice is still really rough when she speaks. "I'm doing better Clarke. The pain is under control for now and I stopped vomiting a while ago. I'm just really tired I guess. Plus this table isn't the most comfortable place to sleep."

I nod standing from my chair and letting go of her hand. I see a small frown color the edges of her lips, but she doesn't say anything. Instead of dwelling on it, I make my way towards Lexa's charts that are still sitting on Nyko's desk.

"According to this and what Nyko told me earlier, you should be fine to go back to the dorm room if you want. Rest up in your own bed."

"Yeah that sounds better than being cooped up here. Plus you won't have to deal with the team and I don't really want to see them right now anyways."

"Okay, well let's unhook you from the IV first, then we'll go from there." Lexa just nods and sits quietly as I take the needle out of her arm.

"Now try standing up." Lexa slowly shifts to the corner of her table and slides her legs off, then slowly moves her weight to her legs. It look like her knees will give out but she recovers and manages to put her full weight on her legs.

"Do you think you can make it back to the room?" I tentatively ask her.

"I think I'll be okay to make it back Clarke. It's not that far from here." I give her a small nod and walk right behind her incase her knees give out again.

We make it all the way to our building before I remember the 5 flights of stairs we have to go up. I look over to Lexa to see if she's okay, but her face is set in stone and from the angle I'm standing at, I can't make out the look in her eyes.

"Ready?" I ask her. She gives me a tight nod, but then does something I didn't expect her to do. She takes my hand in hers as we start the long climb up the large staircase.

When we finally get to the top, Lexa looks like she's about to pass out, so I quickly unlock our door and push her onto her bed. She tries to pull off the t-shirt one of her team mates gave her to wear to make it back here half decent.

"Fuck!" Lexa swears and slowly lowers her arm back down, letting go of the grey football shirt.

I grab a new IV bag and morphling drip and some new bandages from the cardboard boxes setting tem next to Lexa.

"Here, let me help you with that." I grab the bottom of the shirt and slowly pull it off of Lexa's bruised body. When the shirt finally comes off, her old bandages have blossoms of red seeping across them.

"Shit! I knew I should have stitched them when I had the chance."

"Clarke, what's the matter, wait happened?" I can see the worry take over Lexa's usually neutral facial expression.

"Nothing, nothing at all. Why do you ask?" I turn around and grab both of the cardboard boxes, rifling through each to make sure everything I need is there.

"Don't bullshit me Clarke. Something is obviously wrong otherwise you wouldn't be acting like this." It's not until Lexa grabs my hands that I look up at her. I let out a shaky breath before finally opening my mouth.

"I don't want to freak you out, but the wounds on your chest and abdomen have reopened. I haven't gotten a chance to look at them yet, but based on how much they're bleeding, I'll have to stitch them up.

Lexa's quiet for a moment before finally replying, "as long as you hook me up to that morphling, you do whatever you think is best Clarke. I trust you to do this." I nod and gingerly start to unwind the now blood soaked gauze from around Lexa.

Once I get all of the old bandages off, I hook Lexa up to the IV line and add the morphling drip. I then push her down so she's lying on her back.

The next hour goes by in moderate silence. I close up the rest of Lexa's wounds and rewrap them in fresh gauze. The only sounds were from me opening up a new needle and thread kit and every once in a while, Lexa would let out a small grunt or hiss, but otherwise she was quiet and still.

There's a knock at the door. I get off the edge of my bed to answer it. I send a quick glance over to Lexa's bed, but she's still sound asleep, chest slowly rising and falling for the past half hour.

To my utter shock, not really, Octavia and Raven stand in my doorway, but I don't move out of the way, instead I step out into the hallway to talk to them.

"Whoa there Clarke, this doesn't seem to host like. Not even going to invite us in?" The glare I shoot Octavia shuts her up on the spot and wipes the smirk off her lips.

"Sorry guys, I'm not in the mood for jokes tonight."

"Hey Clarke," Raven says while pulling me into a hug, I give in easily to her strong grip, "Lexa's going to be fine. She's come back from worse. And she has the best future doctor looking after her after all."

I let out a heavy sigh and pull out of Raven's arms. "I know she's going to be okay. I just don't get why now of all times that whatever old trauma Lexa's body was holding on to would loosen up. I mean, what if that had happened during practice. And what I don't get is why her body held onto that extra material anyways. By now it should have been absorbed back into her body."

"Clarke, calm down, you're going to pace a hole in the floor. And trust me when I say you don't want to fall into what's beneath you right now." I hadn't even noticed I started pacing, but I force myself to come to a stop anyways.

"Octavia's right, sadly about both things. Clarke, you of all people will be able to figure this out. There's a reason that you asked Gustus for extra anatomy work. You know more about the human body than anyone in this school."

"Yeah, okay Raven. Is there anything else you guys need, cause I should probably go see if I can wake Lexa up and get her to eat something. So I guess I'll see you guys tomorrow." I turn back to my door but before I can open the door 2 pairs of hands grab me and turn me around. I fall into both of Raven's and Octavia's embraces. We stay like that for a while, just holding onto each other before the silence is finally broken by Octavia big mouth.

"You always have us Clarke. We're always going to be here for your crazy ass cause no one else is, but that's okay cause you don't need anyone else. Just the three of us like it's always been."

I chuckle a little as the stray tears that have been wanting to fall finally make their way down my cheeks. "Thanks guys. I know you'll always be here for me, and you guys will always have me for whatever stupid dangerous plots you guys come up with." This gets big smiles all around.

"I'll text you guys later and see you in class. And no early morning wake up calls this time or I'm gunna find a way to wake you guys up at 5 every morning."

"Jeez Clarke you interrupt one cuddle sesh and suddenly we become the bad guys." Raven slaps Octavia on the shoulder with a playful laugh on her lips.

"Hey! It's true!"

"Goodnight guys, I'll see you in class tomorrow." And with that I finally made it back into my room, leaning against the door once it closed, and slowly sliding down until I hit the floor.

"Clarke, is that you?" I hear from the bed across the room.

"Yeah Lexa, it's me, are you okay?" I get off the floor and make my way over to her bed.

"Yes, Clarke I'm okay, just tired really." I nod sitting down on the bed next to her.

"Tell me where you're tired, how you feel tired. It might be the morphling."

Lexa sighs swiping a hand over her face. "All over mostly. It's like I have no energy left in my muscles, I feel really drained. I guess it's not just physical either."

"No?" I whisper. Lexa shakes her head.

"No Clarke. I haven't been I guess 'rested' emotionally or mentally for a while. Not since New Year's Eve, not since the funerals, not since I got out of the hospital, not since the lawyers made me soul heir of my parent's estate. I haven't felt 'rested' since the nightmares started or my scars have turned white. Clarke, I just haven't felt right in a long time. I mean, I kept up with my work at school, I kept my grades up. Once I was healed enough, I still went out with my friends, still did stuff with them, interacted with them. But I never felt right I guess, I never felt like I did when I was out with Costia or with my parents. There was always a something missing even if I was with the team or at a party. No matter what I did to fill the void, alcohol, drugs, partying, girls, anything Clarke, nothing would fill that need that I felt, nothing made me feel better. And I just regretted it, I regretted everything I did to try and fill that void. I spent the whole summer in physical therapy and self-hate Clarke. The only reason I'm sitting here in this bed, it's because of sports and them Clarke. They're the only thing that kept me going. I poured my whole life into training, to forget the pain, to fill the void, I did it all for them. I continued on, I struggled on through everything to make them proud, to make up for what I did, and to honor their memories." There're tears pouring down her face and her voice is chocked by emotion, her body shaking in silent sobs.

"Hey Lexa, hey. It's okay," I gently swipe my thumb under her eyes, "Everything's going to be okay now. You'll be back on the field in no time. And Lexa, what's in the past is in the past. Trust me, I know better than anyone, probably more than you…"

"Clarke," Lexa sits up and it's her turn to swipe, "What do you mean?"

I sigh, I knew I'd have to elaborate on that comment. I take a couple deep breaths and as I start my explanation, Lexa takes my hand. "After my dad died and my mom was arrested, I came here for the summer before freshman year. In that time, I managed to get myself into a lot of trouble. I did a lot of the same stuff you did, just to a much higher scale it seems. I destroyed myself that summer. Parties every other day, wherever I could get in, clubs when I wasn't there. The amount of drinking I did probably should have killed me, now I just have a huge alcohol tolerance. I never got big into the drugs, but when I felt like it, I would indulge. I slept with mostly whoever I could, didn't really care if they were guy or girl," Lexa's hand tightens around mine at that, "But I never found what I was looking for. I never filled the void I was looking for, never found the love I wanted, the love that I no longer felt. I understand Lexa more than you know, and it sucks, and it hurts, and I'm not going to lie to you and tell you it gets better with time, cause it doesn't, not how you want it to at least. But what I did figure out with my 3 months of screwing around and fucking up, what we did to try and fix ourselves with, it can never replace what we want it to. And that's what sucks the most because what we really want is gone and we can't get it back. For you it's your parent's and Costia's lives and for me, my father's life and my mother back in mine." Now there are tears streaming down my own cheeks, but they're stopped my Lexa's soft thumb carefully whisking them away.

We sit in silence for a long time, finally interrupted not by Octavia or Raven or even Bellamy, but by the nightly rounds teacher. This time it happens to be one I know, Mr. Monty. He's my drawing teacher.

"Clarke, what are you still doing up at this hour? And what is all of this?" He gestures to the set up behind me.

"Hey Mr. Monty, this is my new roommate Lexa. I'm sure you've already heard about everything that she's been through so far. I'm supposed to be taking care of her in here so that she doesn't have to stay in the sick bay or in the training room. And I was just about to change out her IV bag, but I promise we'll both be going to bed soon." I throw him the biggest suck up smile I can muster at the moment, and it seems to work.

"Okay Clarke, I trust you on this. And make sure you get to bed, it really is late, especially if Lexa here needs to heal."

"Sounds good Mr. Monty, see you in class tomorrow." He nods and exits our room. I hear Lexa let out a light chuckle form behind me.

"Wow Clarke, didn't know you were that good of a liar."

"I wasn't really lying. I do need to change your IV bag and we probably should go to sleep soon, especially if we have to go to class tomorrow." Lexa nods and lays back down on her bed, letting her eyes close as I change her IV lines, and put a new morphling drip in. I change into my pj's and turn off the main light and lock the door. As I'm walking back over to my bed Lexa breaks the new silence.

"Hhmm, Clarke, would, um, would you mind, um staying with me again, tonight?" She looks everywhere except at me as she says it, a bright red blush coloring her still slightly pale cheeks.

"Yeah I can do that if you want." She nods so I move over to her bed instead. I shove her over so that I can lay down beside her. Once settled, I reach over and turn off the bedside light. I feel Lexa shift beside me and I chuckle quietly. We lay like that for a while, not talking, but not making a move to get comfortable either until we hear the grandfather clock on this floor strike 2 and I decide I want some comfortable sleep tonight. So I gently shuffle around a little until my head ends up on an uninjured part of Lexa's chest and her arm is wrapped loosely around my waist.

"Goodnight Lexa."

"Goodnight Clarke."

And it really was. For the first time in a very long time, I had a full night's sleep free of nightmares.

 **So this happened. Remember I had help writing these next couple of chapter, so it's not all of my fault, promise. Love you guys, stick around for the next chapter.**


	9. Rest Day

**Hello everyone! Sorry this is out a little later than the other chapters have been, but I think I'm going to post a new chapter every other day instead of every day, cause you know life and summer and work and such. Well I would just like to acknowledge something. I finally got a comment asking me about the whole morphling thing, if any of you have actually noticed. Shout out to you Drez, for finally noticing/letting me know you noticed. I have been using morphling instead of morphine the whole story. I would like to point out that this is a little hint at the Hunger Games fandom and also would like to say to watch out for more little references to other fandoms. Kind of like an Easter egg hunt. And let me know when you guys find them. I want to know if you're paying attention! Enjoy the new chapter and as always, let me know what you think or if I made any mistakes. Oh and good luck…**

I wake up slowly, not suddenly like I always do, mostly from nightmares the rest from my damn alarm clock. And it's nice being able to wake up on your own, letting yourself gently start to push away the lure of sleep. It's made even better by the warm body underneath me, chest slowly rising and falling still, fast asleep.

I look up at the person who I happen to be sleeping on and can't help but smile when I see Lexa's calm beautiful face, eyes closed and mouth slightly open. I can't help the stupid ass grin that finds its way onto my lips as I watch her slowly wake up.

"Hey Lexa, how'd you sleep?" I whisper into her black Nike sports bra.

"It was some of the best sleep I've ever gotten Clarke." She whispers back, warping her arm tighter around my waist.

"Oh yeah? That's good. I have some good news. Professor Gustus called last night, left a voice mail that said if we needed to, we could take the day of today. Said something along the lines of you needing to stop getting stitches and I need to look after you because you seem to not be cable of not getting stitches." Lexa snorts.

"That is exactly what Gustus would do." I nod, resting my head back on her chest, again careful not to disturb any of my new work. Silence falls between us again, not awkward silence, a heavy silence that foresees the coming conversation. After a while I finally break it.

"Lexa?" A soft hum, "What about the nightmares, any last night?"

"No, none. Honestly Clarke it was some of the best sleep I've had since the accident." I can feel Lexa's chest tighten at the last word, but before she can close off, I run my fingertips slowly, gently over the stitches that run from under her eye to her jaw.

"Lexa, can I ask you another question?" She again hums in acknowledgment, her whole body vibrating with the sound.

"Do you ever just sit and think, think about what could have been if nothing would have happened, if things would have ended differently?" With those words uttered and no way to take them back, Lexa takes my hand with her free one, bringing both of them to rest over her heart before answering.

"At first I did, Clarke. I would sit alone, on top of the goal post at Polis. The very top, not just the horizontal bar. It would scare the shit out of everyone. The first time it happened, my old football coach found me after school. He about had a heart attack. Called the police, the firefighters, the news. I came down by myself when they all showed up. That was a rough subject to discus with Anya that night over dinner. But I continued to go up there whenever I needed to think, which turned out to be a lot, but not always about what happened. People got used to it at some point, and stopped staring and calling the principal." I chuckle quietly and Lexa smiles in return.

"I used to go up there with a notebook and write about things that were happening or things that I was feeling. It really was the only way I got everything out, all my thoughts, my ideas, my goals. After a couple of months though, I rarely thought about what could have been, what should have been. I went up there the most when I was self-destructing, found it really peaceful in all of the chaos around me. I would write for hours, watch the sunset, and finally go home or to a party when it was too dark to write anymore. I haven't thought about what ifs for a long time though. They never made me feel any better, pretending what could happen. It only made me blame myself ore for what happened. So I stopped pretending and focused on what was in front of me." She grows quiet, face neutral, her eyes are a calm bright green, the same color as a field in mid spring. But in them are turmoil, a storm brews on the horizon of them, just waiting for something to change, to set it in motion, but I won't let it form, I won't let the storm roll in, not now.

"I used to do something similar, still do really. Once I got here, I tried to find the best place to go and think. Somewhere quiet, but where I could see everything and watch people go about their normal lives. I found it right above our heads." At this, Lexa looks up at the ceiling and I can't help but smile.

"There's a fire escape outside of our window. If you get out on it, you can climb up onto the roof. I'd sit there and draw or write for hours, letting my thoughts out through my pencil or charcoal or paint. I'd write about my parents, how I loved going to the lake with them on break or about our nightly dinners together, just talking about our day. But then I'd write about what was going on in my heart, not my mind, but my heart. What I was feeling, what my heart wanted me to write. I'd draw the scenes below me, what was going on in the courtyard, the few students that stay here over the summer, the teachers running around getting everything ready, and the athletes training. I'd paint the sky, the oranges of the morning sunrise, the light blue and white of the noon day sky, the reds and purples of the sunset, and the deep dark blues, blacks, and greys of the night sky. I'd sketch the faces of people I've seen, from my father's world, from my mother's, of my friends and old classmates, of the new people I met here." I can feel Lexa completely relax under me, her breaths evening out. I look up into her eyes and I see the storm receding, her eyes clearing so that they are the beautiful bright green of the spring field untainted by the coming storm.

"But I never liked to think about what ifs either. They never helped me get on with what happened. It hurt too much, to think about my mom loving my dad like nothing happened. I could never imagine a life with her and him loving each other like they used to. If I did picture a life like nothing happened, it never included her, it was just my dad and I." Lexa turns onto her side looking closely at me.

"Lexa you really need to be on your back."

"Oh really Clarke, what for?" An evil smirk colors her lips at my obvious poor choice of words.

"That's not what I meant!" I shout, sitting up to prove my point, but Lexa has other ideas.

"Now, now Clarke, no need to get excited. Stay a while, enjoy the view." She pulls me back down so that now I'm lying on my side too, our faces mere inches apart.

"Clarke?" She asks in a whisper, "Can I ask you a question?"

"You can ask me anything Lexa." I whisper back.

"Oh anything? You sure you can give me this kind of power Clarke, you trust me?"

"Of course I trust you Lexa. And yeah, you can ask me anything, got nothing to hide from you." I say with a smirk.

"Clarke, can I kiss you?" And the smirk is gone, instead it's replaced with a suddenly dry mouth and malfunctioning brain. But somehow I manage to croak out an answer.

"Yeah." And that's all it takes for Lexa to close the distance between us, pressing her soft lips against mine, bringing her right hand, with the IV in it, up to cup the side of my face while I move my left hand to grab her waist and pull her closer. We pull apart slowly, but stay close together, pressing our foreheads together.

"Lexa…" I whisper, my lips barely brushing against her own.

She gulps, Adam's apple bobbing hard, "Yeah Clarke?"

"Can I ask you a question?"

"You can ask me anything Clarke." She croaks out.

"Can I kiss you again?" Lexa doesn't even bother responding, instead she surges forward, getting rid of any space in between us. Pushing our bodies tightly together, her hand tangling in my hair as she shifts so that she's now leaning over me. She pulls back for a second and I watch as she pulls out her IV line, chucking the tube behind her, sitting down on top of me. I don't waste a second, sitting up to meet her, wrapping my arms around her shoulders, and pressing our lips back together. Lexa runs her tongue along my bottom lip, asking for permission and I quickly grant it. Our tongues fight for dominance for a few moments before her's takes over and really I'm not complaining. Unfortunately nothing lasts forever. Someone starts pounding on our door and yelling for me to open it.

"The actual fucking hell." I mutter under my breath, still wrapped in Lexa's strong arms, chest heaving, and no desire to move.

"If we ignore them, do you think they'll go away?" Lexa whispers, arms tightening around me.

"Well I wasn't planning on getting up were you?" She shakes her head no and press back into her, lips gently running over her jaw, pushing her back so now I'm leaning over her. Sadly the pounding on the door doesn't stop and the yelling person doesn't go away.

"For the love of God!" I shout, carefully getting off of Lexa much to her displeasure evident by the absolutely adorable little groan she makes.

"Fuck them Clarke, come back…" She whines as I get to the door.

"Trust me, I would love to but I don't think they're going away anytime soon." And with that I turn the deadbolt and fling the door open which makes the person standing against it trip backwards forcing me to shove them back which I don't mind.

"Can I fucking help you?" I growl at this horrible person who dares to inter- and he's Professor Gustus, shit.

"Hello to you too Clarke. Was I interrupting something important?" He quirks one of his bushy eyebrows making me turn every shade of red ever imaginable.

"Uh, no, no sir. Nothing important, just um checking on Lexa's stitches, uh why are you here?" I try to look a little less suspicious by leaning against the door frame but it only makes Professor Gustus look more suspicious.

"Clarke, is everything okay? Lexa's doing fine, you're doing fine?" He seems genuinely concerned about what's going on and not at all suspicious, hopefully, about what Lexa and I were just doing.

"No, yeah everything is just fine. Lexa's stiches are looking good. The ones on her face are healing nicely and her new ones are infection free. And I'm doing fine. Cage is an ass, but I can deal with him."

"Well that's what I wanted to talk to you about Clarke. You see when I brought Mr. Wallace to the nurse's office, Dean Jaha asked about what happened. Mr. Wallace in a word spilled his guts and Dean Jaha is not happy Clarke. He is requesting your presence in his office this afternoon to discuss the and I quote, 'the course of events that have transcended these past several days,' end quote. I highly suggest that you do not pull a stunt like you did the last time you were in his office. And please do not bring Bellamy as your back up, not after last time. Just go alone Clarke, he just wants to talk to you. And if he does punish, let me know and I'll deal with, but please can we stop hitting Mr. Wallace in the face. It's not solving anything, it's probably only making things worse." Professor Gustus gives me a pleading look, but sighs and turn around when I don't say anything in return. As he's walking away I finally give him an answer.

"Professor, what happened last time was not Bellamy's fault and you know it. Oh, and we both know he doesn't 'just want to talk.' As for Cage, I am making no promises about the wellbeing of his face or the rest of him and really I don't care. I got my revenge, but I know a whole team of football players along with many other people who wouldn't mind seeing him and his man posy roughed up a little more. So don't worry about me or even Lexa, I would worry about everyone else. Now if you excuse me, I need to change Lexa's bandages." With that I step back into my room, shutting and falling back onto the door. It's quiet for a few minutes, then a soft padding of bare feet on the solid wood floors, and soft hands wrapping around my waist, holding me up. I lean into the solid body of Lexa, resting my head on her shoulder, wrapping my arms tightly around her muscled shoulders.

"Clarke, hey. What happened, how was that, what's wrong?" Lexa whispers in my ear, gently running her hands up and down my back, trying to calm me down.

"It was Professor Gustus. He asked how you were doing, told him your stitches were fine. Asked how I was, told him I was fine. Said that Dean Jaha wants to talk to me and to not bring Bellamy this time an-"

"Wait, wait, wait. What happened last time, what'd Bellamy do? And why the hell does the Dean want to see you?" I feel Lexa's heart rate start to increase, her heart pounding, steady and loud in my ears.

"Hey, Lexa. It's okay, just listen." When her heart rate starts to level out, I start again. "Last year I got into some trouble with Octavia and we were sent to the Dean's office. Well Bellamy insisted he go with us to make sure Jaha would give us the fair punishment. Long story short, Bellamy freaked out when Jaha gave us 2 weeks detention, trashed his office before the security guards finally stopped him. He was lucky Professor Gustus convinced Jaha to only give Bellamy detention for the rest of the semester which was about a month. As for why the Dean wants to see me," I let out a half sigh half chuckle, "Apparently Cage spilled his guts about what actually happened to his wrist to Jaha when he went to the nurse's office so I get to pay the esteemed Dean a visit this afternoon." Lexa takes all of this in before giving her own input.

"So you're supposed to go alone even though I broke his nose and threatened him after our fight?" She murmurs into my hair.

"Yeah, Gustus said it would be best if I went alone and promised if Jaha tried to punish me, he's talk to the dean himself." Lexa nods, gently guiding us back to her bed. She plops down, pulling me with her so that I'm sitting in her lap.

"He better, otherwise him and I will be having words that would make the sailors cringe."

"I'll be sure to let him know the next time I see him." I joke causing Lexa to smirk.

"Hey Clarke?" I hum in response, "Do you want to go on the roof?" I look up at her in surprise, but she's looking over at her trunk instead.

"Um, yeah if you want, but I don't know if you should be climbing right now."

"Oh come on Clarke," She says standing up and taking me with her, "I think I can manage getting onto the roof from here, after all, you can do it."

"Fuck you," I say slapping her lightly on the arm, "I was climbing onto roofs while you were still in diapers.

"That would mean you would also be in diapers." She snarks back.

"Well I guess I was just a little more adventurous than most." I'm now at the window looking back at Lexa who's digging around in her trunk for something. When she stands up, she's holding a thick leather bound journal and black ball point pen in her hands. She catches me watching her and blushes, actually blushes, like a normal human. I swear the Lexa I met on the first day of school's been abducted by aliens and replaced with an actual human clone.

"Hey, Clarke," She says waving her free hand, "Whatcha looking at?" I bite my tongue knowing exactly what I want to say but holding back also knowing it's what Lexa would expect me to say. Instead I counter with something I don't think she's expecting.

"Do you want me to bring mine too?" The look of surprise on her face gives her away.

"What? Did you not think I'd guess what that was?" I gesture to her journal, "Cause I have several of my own so…" I mumble. Lexa's silent for a minuet but then says exactly what I thought she would.

"Yeah Clarke, you can bring yours." I nod and turn to my own trunk, grabbing my sketching notebook and a couple pieces of charcoal.

"All right ready to go up now?" Lexa nods in return so I open the window and climb out onto the fire escape. When Lexa's out, I close the window behind us and attach the outside lock which gets a questioning look from Lexa.

"I put this bad boy in after Raven and Octavia found my hideaway. I left the window open one day when I disappeared and Raven being Raven used the Google satellite to scour the roofs of the campus finding me on top of this one." We easily climb up the three feet of wall, sitting on the edge of the building, "They came through that window and freaked out when they saw we laying down on the edge drawing away. Since then I put that lock on the window so that even if they want to find me, they can't get to me. Sometimes you just need some peace and quiet to think." I trail off looking over the campus, at the forest that surrounds this place, at all the students that just got released from their most recent class.

"Yeah I know exactly how you feel. It took me a while before I started using the top of the goal post as my escape. Before that I tried the many closets in school, empty classrooms, trees around the property or in the park, but there was always so much noise or people asking me questions, trying to talk to me. Then one brilliant day after physical therapy, I was walking back from the training room and looked up and it just hit me, if I could get up there, no one would talk to me, it was high up enough that any noise on the ground would be drowned out by the wind, and I had a really nice view of the city of Polis. So the next day, after physical therapy, I jumped on the horizontal bar, pulling myself up, and then climbing up one the uprights. It was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be and when I got to the top it was well worth it." Lexa trails off looking out at the horizon, taking in the whole of Ark High. We sit in silence for a long time, just watching everything below us or the horizon beyond us. At some point though, Lexa's journal ends up in my lap, open, with small neat handwriting covering the pages while Lexa's carefully inspecting the black and white drawings in my sketch book. I stop on one page reading, rereading, and rerereading a small exert written on the crisp white page with an equally small poem underneath it and accompanying poems on the next pages, 4 in all.

"Their violence was petty and ignorant, but ultimately, it was true to who they were. The real violence… the violence that I realized was unforgivable is the violence that we do to ourselves…" –Nomi Marks

The first poem is titled Mind Games:

What does it mean, to be trapped in your own mind?

To understand everything around you even more than everyone else, but not be able to explain what you're thinking.

To run around in circles, trapped in a mental maze, constantly looking for an exit. But the maze shifts and changes every minute, it has multiple levels problems you have to solve, but can't. You just keep going and going until your mind stops trying and all you do is think and over think and solve and it never stops, it's never quiet, but you are.

The second is called The Fake, The Addict:

Caught in a world of lies, spinning, spinning, out of control.

Hiding, hiding everything from prying eyes.

Pretending to be something you're not for other people, for popularity, for our parents, for yourself.

Caught in an infinite cage, trapped, trapped and nowhere to go.

High, High, must have that high to live, to survive.

Lost in a world of repetition, needing that one thing to live, to continue. That one drug, that one thing that one activity, that one feeling. That one person.

The third is called What is Freedom?

It's the ability, the privilege to live outside of the box. But most of the time people don't understand true freedom.

People think it's their right to do whatever they want. They think they can do everything like they are truly free, people think they know freedom.

But that's not what freedom is. Freedom is understanding what others can't. Freedom is finding yourself in the things you do and knowing that you do those things. Freedom is not letting other people's idea of freedom influence your own. To truly know freedom, what the word means, you have to decide that for yourself.

The fourth is called Why We Feel Pain:

Pain is supposed to be controlled in our minds right? People think we can turn it on and off. That we can control the pain we feel, we can condition ourselves to not feel. But that's only physical pain we feel. We have emotions and we feel and they can be hurt and we can feel emotional pain, and it hurts more than any physical pain can.

How badly do you have to be hurt to not feel emotional pain? How many times do you have to be hurt to not feel anymore? At what point do you forget about feelings that you master control of emotional pain?

Physical pain can end in a few days or weeks or months. You can learn to deal with it, to accept it. Emotional pain goes on forever. It consumes you, plagues you, it eats you from the inside out. It never stops and it knows no mercy, it knows no compassion, it knows no end.

I sit there for what seems like ages before I finally look over at Lexa who seems to be staring at one page in particular. I'm surprised to see tears in her eyes and in that instant I know exactly which page in my sketch book she's looking at. It's one of the first in the book, one of my earliest sketches, one of the ones I did right after the whole mess. It's a sketch of my living room, the TV on in the corner, my dad sitting in his leather recliner, reading some crime novel her got from the dollar store and making notes in it, probably about how the legal terms are wrong or the law that the author used is in fact, made up. My mom sitting on the couch smiling over at me, papers scattered in front of her, most likely telling me to go get changed out of my uniform so we can all watch a movie together. It's a sketch of normal, a sketch of something whole, a sketch of something that no longer existed. On the next page is the same set up at the first sketch, TV in the corner, on, recliner off to the side, couch pushed against the opposite wall, pictures of the family everywhere, except in the recliner sits a single bullet with a dark stain underneath it. Over by the couch is my mother, but she's no longer sitting, or smiling, her papers scattered on the floor, and on either side of her, griping her arms lightly, are two FBI agents.

We sit there, on the edge of our dorm room, the whole campus spread in front of us, not saying a word, not needing to. We sit in silence thinking, thinking about what we've shown each other, what we've revealed to the other. Things that neither of us have shown anyone else, things that we trust no one else with. And we take comfort in each other's shaking hands, our trembling fingers, our heaving chests, our shaking shoulders pressed tightly together. We take comfort in this silence that we can share together, a silence that no one else can understand.

 **Oh damn, what did I do…**

 **The quote was shared with me by parad0x1n and it is from the show Sense8.**

 **The 4 poems in this chapter are my own creation and if they happen to be like any other poems you know of, I swear I didn't plagiarize them. I wrote those poems while on the bus traveling around France without WiFi.**

 **I hope you guys liked this chapter and if you want more poetry from 'Clarke and Lexa' let me know.**


	10. Jaha's an AssThe Roof has a Nice View

**Hello all! What wonders I have in store for you! But before we continue I would like to address something that might be a little confusing that was brought to my attention and would like to thank the person who brought it to my attention. So in the last chapter I said that Lexa's Adam's apple bobbing. I would like to say that this is the only way I could think to write what I was referring to and would like to point out that everyone, regardless of gender has an 'Adam's apple.' Its medical name is the Laryngeal Prominence and I thought that maybe you guys didn't want to have to Google it. Hank Green has a video on YouTube if you want to check it out. A point I would like to make as to why Clarke could even see it move in the first place, it's because Lexa as an athlete that has been training since middle school and is extremely fit, has about 14% body fat. Also the angle that I was trying to imply would have Lexa's head tilted up so that the skin over her throat is stretched, thus making her Laryngeal Prominence more prominent. Lastly I am not implying that her 'Adam's apple' is the same size as a man's would be, just a normal women's sized 'Adam's apple.' Very sorry for any confusion, hope that sorted everything out for you guys, and sorry about this long ass intro, so now to the actual chapter. Rest of the notes at the end.**

We stayed on the roof, Lexa writing poems or quotes for each picture in my sketch book while I drew pictures to match her poems, quotes, or small paragraphs of thought, until the sun started to fall and Professor Gustus sent me a text to remind me about going to Dean Jaha's office.

I have no intention of moving from my amazing view, and I'm not talking about what sits below me. Lexa must feel my gaze on her because she turns to me, shoving my shoulder with her's.

"You have to go Clarke. From what I've heard from the team, you don't want to keep the Dean waiting." Lexa turns to face me, lips set in a hard line, eyes more grey than green, like a storm that hasn't decided to release its fury on an unsuspecting town. I nod, setting Lexa's journal next to me and sliding off the edge of the building, landing on the fire escape below me. As I turn to unlock the window, Lexa catches my attention.

"You know, I could always come with you." She's now lying on her stomach, half hanging off the edge of the building.

"Right and risk you doing what Bellamy did last year? No thanks." But before I go back through the window, I move over to where Lexa's hanging, pressing a chaste kiss to her lips before pressing my forehead to hers.

"Everything will be okay. I've known Jaha since I was a kid." I can feel Lexa raise an eyebrow in question. "When I was little, my mom worked with Jaha's wife so his son, Wells, and I used to do everything together. Jaha and my dad would always watch whatever game was on while Wells and I would play."

I step back a bit knowing if I stayed any longer that I wouldn't be able to leave, but it seems Lexa has one more question for me before I leave.

"How come I haven't heard anything about him since I got here?" My whole body goes rigid. 'I knew, I just knew this question would come up as soon as I mentioned him.' I think to myself.

"I'll tell you when I get back." I say quietly, ducking back into our room. I can hear Lexa call out behind me, but I don't turn around or go back out. Instead I quickly change into some half presentable clothes and head out the door. The minute I'm outside the dorm building I tear off towards the main school building, listening to the sound my shoes make as they slap against the hard concrete, thoughts racing through my mind. As I round the corner of the cafeteria, I see the crowd of students heading to their last class of the day. I take a right, running around the other side of the cafeteria to avoid the crowd even though it'll take longer to get to Jaha's office.

As I run, I can't help but think of a poem that I had read in Lexa's journal:

A flower grows. It blooms, it thrives.

A flower dies. It withers, it perishes.

But a flower can grow back. But it won't be the same as it once was.

It will be a smaller version. It will not contain the same beauty it once did.

A flower is like a person. When a person dies, what is left is a memory of them, a smaller less beautiful version of them.

But also like a flower, they will always be there. Coming back year after year, setting their roots deep, not wanting to be forgotten.

I think about how true that is and how much it hurts to acknowledge it. By this time, I'm standing outside of the Dean's office waiting for him to allow me to enter.

"Come in Clarke." I hear him call out from behind his dark stained oak door. I push the door open and step into Jaha's large office.

The left wall of his office is made up of floor to ceiling windows that stretch the entire length of the room. The other three walls are covered in floor to ceiling book shelves made out of the same kind of wood as his door filled with thousands of leather bound books. He has a large white stone desk that sits centered against the wall of windows that overlooks the whole campus. Jaha sits behind his desk in a large black leather chair, several stack of papers on his desk in front of him while two matching chairs sit opposite him on the other side of his desk. The floor is covered in large black tiles and if it weren't for the wall of windows, his office would resemble something out of a Sherlock Holmes novel. I take a seat in one of the black leather chairs facing Jaha and wait for him to speak, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of speaking first. After several long minuets of silence he finally sighs and starts the conversation.

"Clarke, it has come to my attention that there has been some drama with our new student in the last couple of days. Is this correct?" He looks at me expectantly and I knew I'd have to talk eventually.

"I wouldn't say its drama." I reply simply, crossing my arms over my chest.

"What would you call it then Clarke, please enlighten me on this situation." Jaha's moved from behind his desk now and is leaning against the front of his desk looking down at me expectantly.

"I would call it Cage and his posy attacking me in AP Anatomy class and Lexa defending me." Jaha nods, stroking his stupid beard.

"This I have not heard Clarke. Why don't you tell me everything that's happened, from the very beginning, including what happened Wednesday and yesterday." I take a deep breath and start explaining from the very beginning like Jaha asked about the whole situation. Surprisingly he is quiet and pays rapt attention to what I have to say, every once in a while asking a question to clear something up that he has heard rumors about. By the end of my recount of current events, I feel pretty good that Lexa nor I will be getting in any trouble. I end by telling Jaha that I had to sew up the wounds on Lexa's upper body and abdomen last night from Cage as they had reopened walking up the stairs to get back to our room. Jaha sits quietly for quite a while thinking and mulling everything over and when he finally speaks, his tone is sharp and clipped.

"Clarke, I want to be clear on something," I nod my head in understanding, "So you said when this all started with the big fight in your AP Anatomy class, Cage sent his boys on you because you called him out on not being a good partner for a project and instead said you were working with Lexa?" I nod my head and Jaha continues, "So Lexa, deciding that you did not need to be physically harmed as was these boy's intentions decided to step in as you learn a few moments later can more than hold her own in an uneven fight." I node again not really feeling up to speaking anymore. "Okay. After Lexa puts up a good fight, she is then restrained by Mr. Miller and when you try to step in, Mr. Murphy grabs you while Mr. Mbege is still out for the count?" I nod yet again and Jaha blows out a heavy breath while rubbing his temples.

"And that's when Mr. Wallace decides to use Lexa as his punching bag?" I barely tip my head, the memories of the fight flashing in my mind and I can see Lexa taking punch after punch, blood flying, Cage's hand and shirt covered in it. Jaha snaps me out of my thoughts when he asks yet another question.

"So yesterday, again in AP Anatomy, you punched Cage in the face and then preceded to break his wrist?" I nod slowly knowing there's no point in denying it as I've already admitted to doing so.

Jaha lets out a long sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose in irritation. "Clarke, let me be very clear. The school can get in a lot of trouble if Mr. Wallace decides to sue you because you broke his wrist unprovoked." Before I can argue, Jaha holds up his hand, silencing me. "I have talked with Mr. Wallace's father though and he is willing to not sue you solely because of what his son did Tuesday. This being the case, I can still punish Mr. Wallace and as you put it, his 'posy.' I have decided that they will serve detention for the rest of the semester and after winter break, I will personally review their behavior for the rest of the semester. If they cause any more problems, they will serve detention the rest of the school year. I am also suspending them from all athletic programs for the entire school year. Their coaches will not be pleased, but considering what has happened, I cannot let their behavior go unpunished." I breathe out a sigh of relief because finally Cage and his band of assholes get what they deserve. Usually they got off with warnings or a detention at most for the crap that they pull. Unfortunately, Jaha isn't done serving up punishments.

"As for Lexa." My head snaps up at the mere mention of Lexa having to get punished. "Based on what you have told me and what I have gathered from some other sources that have the same story you do, she will not be serving detention. Instead she will help me with a project for the next month."

"You can't do that!" I yell at him.

"Clarke, as the Dean of this school, I have every right to do this. I cannot let her example go unpunished. I will not have people fighting in the halls just because they saw her fighting Cage. If I do not punish her somehow, what will people think about that? That I am playing favorite to our new start quarterback? I simply cannot do that Clarke. And there are far worse punishments I considered Clarke that I could have easily picked instead." I clench my jaw, managing to think of a few that Jaha is referring to.

"And you Clarke are also being punished. I understand your anger at Cage for hurting Lexa so badly, but again, I cannot support this kind of behavior. You will be suspended from the cheerleading team until the week before football season, which is about 2 months." Shit, I can't believe this! There's no way that Gustus is not going to hear about this.

"And if you're thinking about talking to Professor Gustus about this matter, I already talked to him about this matter and he agreed with me that your's and Lexa's punishments were fair. But you might be happy to hear that Professor Gustus will allow you to help out at football practices if you are interested. He made the excellent point that you can still keep an eye on Lexa and still observe what your team is doing since the football team and the cheer team practice at the same time on the same field." Damn him and his stupid logic. And damn Gustus for agreeing with him. It's not might fault Cage is an ass and deserves to be put in his place and Lexa and I are the only ones brave enough to stand up to him.

"Well I guess there's no arguing with that logic then." I snark, standing from the leather chair and walking towards the door, not able to stand the Dean's presence anymore.

"Clarke," Jaha calls behind me, "Lexa's punishment will start when she is deemed ready to start football practice again, your's on the other hand is effectively immediately." I don't bother turning around or responding to him, instead I exit his office and make my way back outside.

Once out of the building I take off, not for my dorm like I told Lexa I would, but instead I run strait for the forest that surrounds this stupid school. I easily climb the chain link fences that separates the forest from the main campus, dropping softly on the other side and running into the trees. I quickly find what I'm looking for, following the clearly visible game trail. It only take a few minutes to reach my destination, a small L shaped lake surrounded by large boulders and huge oak trees. I make my way over to one of the largest boulders that juts out over the lake, letting my legs hang over the edge several feet above the water.

I found this place the summer between Freshman and Sophomore year by accident. I was trying to make my way to Bellamy's secret hide out, but took the wrong game trail. I ended up here and since then spent any time I wasn't on the roof or with Raven and Octavia at their houses, here.

Looking out at the still crystal clear water of the lake, the bright green of the tree's leaves, and the dark rough edges of their trunks makes me remember another one of Lexa's poems, one that I had sketched a picture for not too long ago:

Deep in the forest…

No other sounds, the silence of the forest that is never silent.

The birds singing, insects humming, trees sighing, creatures speaking, creaks murmuring.

The colors of this lonely world, vibrant against your foreign body that tries to hide, that tries to blend in.

The emerald of the leaves, the richness of the Earth, the vibrancy of the grass, the strength of the trunks, the clear water, the golden light.

The peace that surrounds you like a blanket, filling you, keeping you.

Giving you freedom, giving you hope, giving you life. Leaving you light and refreshed, taking away your pain, your fear. Filling your lungs, letting everything else go.

I sit there thinking about everything that's changed in the last week, everything that's happened, but also everything that's still to happen, that could happen, that hopefully will happen. It's not until I notice it starting to get dark that I start to make my way back to the room, back to Lexa. I stop by the cafeteria to get us some food since neither of us have eaten since yesterday. By some miracle I manage to escape all questioning and almost, almost make it to my room. Sadly I was intercepted by the two people who I knew were camping out my room since I haven't texted them like I said I would.

"Oh hey there Clarke! I didn't even know you lived here anymore!" Octavia exclaims the moment she sees me. "You know since we never see you or hear from you anymore."

"Yeah Griffin where you been?" Raven chimes in, the two of them taking up the whole hallway.

"Come on guys, I need to get back to my room." I raise the boxes of food as an excuse.

"Oh no. You're not getting through until you tell us where little miss perfect attendance was all day. I mean you didn't even tell us that you were going to be out. Not. A. Single. Word." Octavia punctuates the last part by poking my in the arm, Raven nodding next to her.

I sigh, knowing that they won't let me get by unless I tell them everything, I've had experience with their roadblocks before and have no intention of going through it again.

"Fine, fine. I'll tell you guys everything, but can we please got to my room and do so. I don't really feel like talking about it in the middle of the hallway." I gesture to said hallway and point over to my room. Raven and Octavia have a silent conversation which they've gotten really good at since they started dating, you know because of the whole, no homosexual relationships thing.

It's raven who finally delivers the verdict. "Fine we can talk in your room, but we expect some alcohol to go along with this conversation." I let out a dramatic sigh, but agree to the terms. As we reach my door, I'm struck with the brilliant idea to knock incase Lexa is changing or something. There's no response though and I assume she's still on the roof so I lead Octavia and Raven into the room. Octavia immediately moves over to the secret stash coming up with a bottle of Scotch while Raven claims a spot on my bed, Octavia sits down next to her and opens the new bottle. While they're getting settled, I put the food on Lexa's bed and climb through the window. Once out on the fire escape, I hop the 3 feet to the roof easily spotting Lexa lying on her stomach writing something in her journal.

"Hey Lexa, can you come down? I brought us something to eat and have some new from Jaha that you need to hear." I lie down next to her trying to read what she's been writing over her shoulder, but she shuts her journal and to look at me, that damn smirk pulling at her lips.

"But Clarke, why can't we just eat up here? I mean look at this view!" Except she doesn't take her eyes off me and I can feel the blush creeping on to my cheeks.

"Yes it is quite a nice view, huh?" I joke back which makes Lexa laugh, a real full on genuine laugh and good Lord, I could spend the rest of my life listening to that sound. Right then and there I promise myself to try and make that amazing sound happen every day for the rest of time.

"But sadly we are going to be joined for our meal."

"Who's joining us?" Lexa asks, moving closer so that our faces are mere inches apart.

"Raven and Octavia ambushed me in the hallway and were demanding answers, for future reference, if you ever see them blocking the hallway, turn around and run the other way and climb the side of the building. It is much easier than trying to talk your way through a hallwayblock. And now, they are currently drinking Scotch on my bed most likely making out and oh, if we're not down there in the next say 2 minutes, then they be up here dragging us down by our ears." Lexa thinks this over for several seconds before focusing back on me.

"Well then, we better make those 2 minutes count." And with that, Lexa pushes me over so that I'm lying on my back and she's now straddling me. She takes my hands and pines them above my head with one of her's the other brushing over my jaw before getting lost in my long blonde hair. Lexa's soft but bruised lips come crashing down on my own, our lips push and pull on the other's trying to get some kind of advantage, except I'm Clarke Griffin and I play dirty. As I pull her bottom lip in between my own, I push my knee up between her legs and as Lexa opens her mouth to gasp, I push my tongue into her mouth, feeling her moan into mine. Our tongues fight for dominance before her's takes over and I'm the one moaning as she runs her tongue over mine. Sadly we are interrupted by a loud call from my room.

"Woods, Griffin! You two better be down here in 30 seconds or I'm coming up there and dragging you down here! And Lexa you can ask Clarke about how fun that is!" Octavia just can't keep her god damn mouth shut.

"We should go." I whisper against Lexa's soft lips, she hums but makes no move to pull away.

"Fuck Lexa, we really need to go, Octavia is going to be up here any second." As I say it, I can hear footsteps on the fire escape. Lexa hears it too and rolls off just as Octavia pops her head over the edge of the roof.

"What the hell are you two doing? Lexa why the hell are you staring at the sky like your high? You're not high are you? Clarke what the hell did you do to this poor girl?"

"Octavia shut the hell up would you? Lexa is not high, she's just thinking about what the hell she's going to do without us one day." Lexa snorts rolling into a sitting position and Octavia hops the wall coming to sit with Lexa and I.

"You sure you're not high, you're pupils are huge and you're really flushed. Jeez Griffin what the hell did you do to this girl?"

"She didn't do much, just introduced me to the wonders of this roof." And god if I didn't want to push her up against a wall before, I sure did now.

"Well then, why don't we go back to Griffin's and talk about some shit, maybe eat some shit, and definitely drink some shit then." Lexa snorts and I can't help but laugh as Octavia hauls us to our feet.

We finally make it back to my room where Raven is chugging hard on the Scotch bottle and as I pass by, I snag it out of her hands taking a swig for myself and passing it to Lexa as she sits next to me on her bed, opening up the take away box of food I had gotten earlier.

"Hey there Griffin, Woods. Finally decided to come down for a family meeting?" Yeah Raven's been hitting the bottle hard. She might be tough as nails on the outside, but when it comes to Scotch, she's fucked.

"Raven please shut up before I have to get O here to carry you back to your room like last time we had a 'family meeting.'" Octavia snorts and Lexa elbows me, just another thing I'll have to fill her in on later.

"Yeah Mech, and no more Scotch. You know what that stuff does to you."

"Will you to shut up for once in your lives? Now as I was trying to say before, Princess needs to spill her guts here and tell us what the hell's been going down the last 24 hours and what Jaha wanted you for." I look at her in surprise. There's no way she could have figured out on her own that Jaha wanted to see me.

"God Griffin, you're so dense. I saw you curving round the cafeteria to avoid the crowds. I guessed cause you weren't in uniform that you had to be going to see Jaha. He's the only one who'll never bust you for dress code." Guess the cats out of the bag now. Instead of spill my guts like Raven recommended, I pass the bottle of Scotch to Lexa and grab a bottle of vodka for O and Raven. If were to get through the next couple of ours, we're going to need some help doing it.

 **You can kiss me or you can kill me, but for your information, my best friend helped me write the roof scene, so you can kill her too. Let me know what you guys thought of this one, if you're still liking the poems. The next couple of chapters are going to have much more interaction with the other characters and maybe a little surprise for you guys. Until Tuesday.**


	11. Family Meeting

**So today might be Thursday… My bad. How about this, I'll post at least 2 new chapters a week, minimum and you guys won't tear my head off, deal? As always, love you guys for letting me know what you think so far and keeping up with this story. Let me know if I messed anything up.**

"Alright Griffin out with it all! What's been going on with that one," She gestures towards Lexa, "And what were you and Jaha talking about earlier?" I can feel three curious gazes laser focused on me and I know that they won't leave until I give them the answers they're looking for.

"Fine, fine. Now if I'm going to explain everything that you want me to, then you'll have to shut your mouths for once and listen with those things called ears." Raven snorts, Octavia throws one of my pillows at me, and Lexa elbows me in the side, but lets her hand rest on the back of mine. I turn mine over and intertwine our fingers, letting our hands drop to the bed.

"Hey, it's true! Okay, then I guess I should start from where we left off last night. Before I had talked to you guys last night, I had stitched Lexa up even more. I had to close up the wounds that were on her chest and abdomen. They had opened up when we had climbed the stairs to get back in here after Lexa had spent the day in the training room. When I had seen you two in the hallway last night, it was after I had spent over an hour closing up her reopened wounds. Other than those, Nyko says that she is perfectly healthy and that the incident in the locker room is an isolated occurrence. As for why we weren't in class today, Professor Gustus sent me a text last night after he had stopped by to check up on us saying that we could take today off as a kind of rest/recovery day. So that's exactly what Lexa and I have been doing all day, resting and relaxing." Lexa squeezes my hand at my words and I can't help but let a small smirk make its way onto my lips, but I quickly cover it by taking a large sip of Scotch.

"As for my conversation with Dean Jaha this afternoon, it was about what he has decided to do about everyone's punishments." I can feel everyone's attention snap to me, even more so than before, especially Lexa's. "He told me that Cage and his posy are not going to be allowed to play any sports this school year and they have detention the rest of the semester. If they have any kind of incident this semester, then Jaha is going to give them detention for all of next semester too." Octavia lets out a low whistle while I feel Lexa relax slightly against me.

"Unfortunately there's more." Lexa once again stiffens at my side, predicting what I'm about to say. "Lexa has to help Jaha with some project for a month. He says you can go help him once Nyko clears you to start practicing again. I have no idea what this project is, but he says that you're lucky it's not detention, and I believe him." Octavia looks like she's about to throw the bottle of vodka in her hands but luckily Raven notices in time and takes it from her. I on the other hand take another pull from the bottle in my own hands, letting the harsh alcohol burn its way down my throat.

"But don't worry, I'm left out in this little punishment plague either! Dean Jaha has decided because of my action yesterday that I will be suspended from the cheerleading team for 2 months, until football season starts. But don't worry! He told me that it was perfectly fine to go help out at football practices to and I quote, 'keep an eye on Lexa and observe what my team is doing since the cheerleading team and the football team practice on the same field at the same time.'" I can feel the anger rolling off of Lexa in waves and I know if I wasn't holding her hand to tight or she was injured so bad, she'd be up on her feet pacing the room or punching the walls. As soon as I think it, Octavia's on her feet squaring up against the closets wall. Raven manages to catch her arm on her wind up and folds her into a tight hug. Octavia tries to fight it for a while but ends up collapsing in Raven's arms.

"He can't do that! He can't fucking do that!" Octavia yells into Raven's chest. I nod my head slowly as I turn to look at Lexa for the first time during the whole conversation. But she's just as I suspected her to be, stoic features, stiff posture, even breathing, gaze focused straight ahead. The only thing that gives her away is the strength of her grip on my hand, she's practically crushing it in her own.

Raven somehow manages to get O to finally stop yelling and sit back down on my bed, but silence fills the room, none of us knowing what to say until my phone buzzes. It's a text from Bellamy and it's not the text that catches my attention, it's the time. The little number on my phone read 12:45 AM. Checks are going to start any minute while Raven and Octavia are still wrapped up in a tight hug on my bed.

I clear my throat trying to get their attention. I only manage to get Raven's but that's all I need. "Mech, it's 12:45. I hate to cut this wonderful family meeting short, but you and O there need to get back to your room before check starts."

"Okay, thanks for letting us know Clarke." Raven mutters something in Octavia's ear and they slowly rise, followed by small steps towards our door. I stand up, giving Lexa's hand a final squeeze, and quietly opening my door. I stand in the doorway and watch Raven heavily support a most likely drunk and extremely emotional Octavia back to their room. Once they're out of sight, I close and lock the door behind me.

It takes me no time to find my back to Lexa's bed and under her covers, snuggled tightly against her side, head once again laying on her chest, careful not to jostle any of my new handiwork while her arms are secured firmly around my waist, one hand brushing light fingers over my abs while the other traces random patters over my ribs. We stay quiet until the person checking tonight passes and even after that we let the silence between us do all of the talking. Finally though, Lexa reminds me of what I needed to teach her about this mixed up school and my crazy ass friends.

"Hey Clarke?" I hum in response, "What happened at your last 'family meeting?'"

"Yeah that was a disaster. I took place a few weeks before school ended last year. Octavia and I were concerned about how much Raven had been drinking in the last couple of weeks. As we found out, it wasn't how much she was drinking, but what she was drinking. Apparently Bellamy had a ton of Scotch left over from some party and was just handing it over to Raven to do whatever with, claimed it could be used as rocket fuel. Long story short, our 'meeting' turned into a shouting match between Octavia and I, and a drunk Raven. We were lucky that a teacher wasn't walking by and wondered what was going on. Word to the wise, if you're caught with any kind of alcohol, that's an automatic suspension and the next time you get caught, you get expelled, no questions asked. And that's why we don't let Raven have Scotch anymore." I feel Lexa nod. I'm almost put to sleep by the steady rise and fall of her chest when she asks the question I've been dreading all day.

"What happened to Wells Clarke?" I don't answer for a long time trying to get myself to answer her, but finding it harder than I thought it would be. I finally find my voice though it is rough and thick, my throat tight and tears just waiting to fall.

"We were out one night before our freshman year started, during the summer. It was Well, me, and another one of my best friends, Finn. We were walking around town after catching a late movie. We were walking back to Finn's apartment since it was the closest to the movie theatre. Finn insisted we take a shortcut through an ally he always traveled through. Half way through, we met 2 men dressed in all black with masks over their faces, large knives griped tightly in their gloved hands. They told us to hand over all of our money and valuables. Finn and Wells weren't having any of it, so when the robbers got closer, they attacked. It looked like they were going to win for a second, but that's when everything went south. I heard a cry from Wells' direction and saw him drop to the ground like a sack of potatoes and it was only a beat before Finn followed him. The two men stood before me, breathing heavy, the knives they held covered in blood. They looked at each other and high tailed it out of there. I ran over to them, quickly checking over them for the source of the bleeding. Wells had a huge cut across his neck. He died within a matter of seconds. Finn on the other hand had several deep puncture wounds to his abdomen that were gushing blood. I tried the best I could to stop the bleeding, but by the time the ambulance arrived, he was gone too. I lost two of my best friends that night, and why, because I couldn't do anything to save them. I was powerless to do anything to save my best friends, friends I had known since I was in diapers, people that I had grown up with, done everything with." A harsh sob wracks through me, the tears that were just on the surface when I started are now flowing down my face in a torrent. Strong arms wrap even tighter around me while soft lips press tender kisses against my forehead and temples, those soft lips murmuring soothing nothings.

"That's why I want to be a doctor so badly, to be able to save people, to be able to do what I couldn't that night. That's why I know so much about emergency medicine. Ever since that night, I have been adamant about learning everything I can so that it'll never happen again." A heavy silence envelopes us. I get my breathing back into a somewhat normal rhythm, trying as hard as I can to bury my face in Lexa's neck as her hands run soothingly up and down my back and sides. Lexa breaks the silence, her voice quiet, soft, sad, but not pitying.

"I'm sorry you had to go through that Clarke. I'm sorry you had to watch them die. I'm sorry you couldn't save them. No one should ever have to go through that, trust me. But Clarke, it's not your fault that you couldn't save them, and you know that." And she left it at that, and honestly, that's all I could ask for. What Lexa said is all I've ever wanted to hear about what happened. Sincere in her condolences while giving none of that pity bullshit, but also not over taking about it, and a simple but effective reassurance that made me more comforted than all of the hundreds I've gotten in the past after everything had happened.

At some point I must have fallen asleep in Lexa's warm comforting arms because the next thing I know, the alarm clock on Lexa's bedside table is blaring its good morning to the world. Lexa smashes her hand against the top making the thing mercifully shut up. But instead of getting up, she pulls me closer, tucking my head under her chin and holding my tighter. And Lord, if we were going to any other school I would have just taken another day off, but Ark High being what it is, I know that we have to get back to classes.

Lexa and I finally made it out of bed, though it took a hell of a lot of convincing and threatening to even get her in the bathroom, but once there it only took half an hour for the booth of us to get ready for school. Once everything was taken care of, all of Lexa's stitches cleaned and the bandages changes, we headed to the cafeteria to claim some breakfast before the wrestling team shows up and leaves just the crumbs. Lexa walks me all the way to AP Political Science.

"I'll see you in P.E. and try not to get in any more fights okay?" I whisper against her new Oxford.

"No promises Clarke." I swat her across the arm before stepping back slightly and moving into the doorway of Professor Kane's class.

"It's one day then you can rest over the weekend. And think about it this way, if you get injured again today then you can't go to Bellamy's party tomorrow." I raise my eyebrows in challenge but I don't see any in Lexa, just a smug ass smirk.

"Ms. Griffin, if you would be so kind to actually step into my classroom and take your seat, I would greatly appreciate it. And Ms. Woods, I understand that the past few days have been quite difficult, but you should really be getting to class now." Professor Kane's voice rings out behind me.

"Yes sir. See you later Clarke." And with that, Lexa makes her way to the large staircase at the end of the hallway to get to her first class.

"Ms. Griffin, I and the rest of the class are waiting, please take your seat!" I murmur something about what an ass Kane's being at the moment, but move to take my seat next to Raven and Octavia. When I'm finally sitting down, Kane turns back to the board and starts explaining how World War I was started and all of the interconnecting pieces fit together.

"What was that Clarke? You're never late to class and you always do what a teacher tells you the first time." Raven mutters behind her raised book.

"Yeah what this one said," Octavia gestures to Raven who rolls her eyes, "And why is Lexa going to classes today? Is she even supposed to be out of bed?" There seems to be genuine concern in both O's and Raven's and I can't help but feel my chest tighten a little at how much they care for Lexa in such a short amount of time.

"It's not ideal, but I talked to Gustus this morning to check and he said that she needs to go to classes today. I hate it just as much as you guys do, trust me." They both nod, turning back to face Professor Kane and his notes about who is allied with who and who invaded who first in WWI.

The bell rings 45 minutes later giving us 10 minutes to get to P.E. and change into our uniforms. As usual, Raven Octavia and I walk to the locker room to get changed but I feel someone come up next to me. Before she even speaks I know who it is, because really how many other 6 foot girls do I know, and I could see the little bruise I left on her neck last night out of the corner of my eye.

"How was class Clarke?" Lexa says beside me, gently brushing her hand against mine, but not taking it knowing the risks of being caught.

"Oh you know, while Kane talked about the beginning of WWI, Raven, Octavia, and I talked about how you need to be in bed and not walking around school all day." Lexa snorts next to me before opening the locker room door for me.

"Trust me when I tell you I much rather be in bed with a certain blonde cheerleader than going to classes today." I look around quickly to make sure no one heard her, but it seems no one else was paying attention.

"Do you want to get us expelled?" I hiss, quickly changing into my P.E. uniform and moving over to help Lexa with her's.

"I guess not." Lexa pouts as I pull her t-shirt over her head.

Octavia of course has to ruin the moment. "Let's go you two! I don't really want to run extra laps because Lexa's not being the model patient Clarke!" Lexa and I both roll our eyes but none the less exit the locker room at Octavia request.

Class wasn't actually too bad today. Indra was too busy talking with Lexa the whole to pay attention to what we were doing so Octavia organized a game of kickball which everyone actually agreed to which is a miracle in itself. Indra dismissed us 10 minutes early to go and change but caught me on the way there.

"Griffin, Gustus has told me of your punishment and the 'solution' he came up with for you. I want you to know that unless you really enjoy sweaty boys and their clothes that this might not be the best option for you. But I can assign you to help Lexa here with her physical therapy that just happens to occur outside." I look over to Lexa to make sure Indra is being serious and she just nods.

"Um, yeah I can help Lexa with her physical therapy, not a problem."

"Excellent. Then I'll see you tonight." Indra gives Lexa one more nod before turning back to her clip board, marking something down.

"Did you happen to have any say in this new arrangement?" I question Lexa who turns away just so that I can't see her face.

"You did! You know you didn't have to do that right?"

"Please Clarke. If you were going to do what was originally set for you, you wouldn't last a week. Let me tell you from experience, the boys do not care if their gear smells like shit or they smell like shit. I'm pretty sure they have a competition between themselves to see you can smell the worst." I let out a chuckle at the look of disgust that crosses Lexa's features as she explains this.

"Whatever you say, _Commander_." It's Lexa's turn to chuckle at the use of her nickname. Sadly the bell rings signaling us to part and continue on our journey of knowledge known as the rest of the school day.

"I'll see you at lunch then?" I ask her as we come to a stop at the entrance of the main building.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world." Lexa replies giving my hand a gentle squeeze before reentering the school building while I turn towards my art class.

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"Okay class, I want you all to hand in your sketch books. I want to see the progress you've made since last year, and I will be able to tell if you have not been practicing over the summer." There's a loud groan from the class as Mr. Monty starts to collect said sketch books. I turn mine in with no complaint because if I couldn't draw over the summer then I'm pretty sure I would go insane.

The rest of class is used to figure out what our next big assignment will be. There are several suggestions to do a landscape drawing, some people want to do an abstract sketch while others would prefer to do a still life. It's not until I make the suggestion to do a human figure drawing that everyone starts to agree on something. We end up deciding to do a series of 'action shot' drawings. We each have to draw 3 different people doing 5 different physical activities. The goal is to capture their movement at the exact moment of the action in the drawing. Mr. Monty seemed pretty happy with our decision and set the rough draft date for 2 weeks from now. The final pictures are to be due in a month. The bell rings signaling our release. Lunch for the Juniors and Seniors while the Freshmen and Sophomores have another class.

"Hang on Clarke. I would like to talk to you." Mr. Monty calls out before I make through the arch way that serves as our door.

"Sure Mr. Monty, what's up?" He walks back to his desk where our pile of sketch books sit. He rifles through a couple until he pull one out, mine.

"I wanted to ask you about something you drew." Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. He's totally talking about my sketch of Lexa. He's going to know something's up, shit!

"Um, yeah what is it?" I ask nervously.

"It's about this one." Mr. Monty opens my book to the last drawing I did which is of course the one of Lexa.

"Clarke, this is incredible work! The way you drew her, the stance she's in, it looks like she's about to make the winning touchdown pass. I love how you used the natural shadows of her body to highlight her straining muscles, and the look of pure determination and focus in her eyes is amazing. Did you watch a lot of her old games, you know since she's your new roommate and all and that's how you managed to portray her so accurately?" Oh thank god…

"Um, yeah. I heard rumors of about her so I did a little research about how well she actually played. I was pretty impressed with her level of calm in the heat of things and thought she would make a challenging model to draw." Mr. Monty nods, closing my sketch book and setting it back on his desk.

"Well it seems so. Good job Clarke and I would love to see her show up again in your assignment. Now you should get to lunch. We can talk more about this later." With that I'm dismissed from the most terrifying 7 minutes of my life.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I find Raven, Octavia, and Lexa already sitting at a table eating and chatting away in the cafeteria.

"Wow, look who it is! The one, the only, Clarke Griffin who is apparently making a habit of being late to everything!" Octavia quips as I approach the table. Raven elbows her in the ribs but she can't hide the smile that's playing at her own lips.

"Fuck of would you? Mr. Monty wanted to talk to me after class." I snark back letting my tray fall onto the table.

"What did he want to talk to you about?" Lexa asks gently taking my hand under the table. As she does so I can feel all the tension leave my body.

"Oh nothing important. He just wanted to ask me about a drawing I had done and talk about the new assignment." Not a complete lie.

"Well that sounds fun, but you'll never believe what Bellamy did in class today!" Raven says around a mouthful of turkey sandwich. And that's how the rest of lunch goes, talking about how Bellamy fell off his stool in Chemistry and took the whole table of chemicals with him causing the lab to go into quarantine, or about how the soccer team is looking this year, or about what everyone around school thinks about the football team's chance of winning state are. I try to follow the conversations, but my mind is just in another world.

 **So this was kind of a filler chapter to get us to the action of AP Anatomy and Bellamy's party which will be next chapter. Sorry about how late this update is but again I think I'll try for at least 2 updates a week instead of a set day, just keep your eyes peeled.**


	12. Gustus Knows

**Well today may or may not be Wednesday… Sorry about not updating sooner but I got a job for the summer at a horse farm and have been pretty busy for the past 4 days or so. But hopefully now I can adjust to the new schedule and get more chapters out, yay. As always let me know what you think and let me know if I messed anything up.**

The rest of the day goes by without problem until of course last period.

By the time I get into class, Lexa's already sitting at our usual lab table with Cage and his posy nowhere in sight.

I fall heavily into my seat with a loud huff. It makes Lexa snap her head in my direction causing a coy shit eating grin to cover her beautiful face. "Oh hi there Clarke, didn't see you there."

"Aw shut it great Commander." I say shoving Lexa in the shoulder nearly knocking her out of her chair.

"Watch it Clarke!" Lexa exclaims grabbing onto me so she doesn't fall out of her chair.

"Alright class settle down." No one settles down. "Hey I said settle down!" Everyone shuts up.

"Thank you. Now today we will be learning about the advanced structures of the muscular structure of the human body." I cast a quick glance over to Lexa, but she has head buried in her notes, utterly focused on what Professor Gustus is saying.

Mercifully, class goes by without a problem. Without a fight braking out we actually manage to get through the material we need to and still have several minutes to work on our projects before the bell rings. Of course Lexa and I don't use the time to work on our project like the good students we're supposed to be.

"So where do you think Cage and his posy are today?"

"I have no idea but I really don't care either." I reply, shoving my notebooks into my bag as the bell rings. "Because you need to get to football practice and I need to not go to cheerleading practice, so grab your stuff and let's go!"

"Ha ha, calm down Clarke. It's not like we're going to miss anything. You or Indra are not going to let me run or do drill or anything fun except physical therapy. I've had enough of that to last me a life time Clarke." I can't help but chuckle as we make our way to the door. Sadly just as we're about to walk through a heavy hand lands on my shoulder stopping me in my tracks.

"Clarke, Lexa. A word please, and close the door." Professor Gustus says from behind us and by his tone it's not a request so of course Lexa and I oblige. He pulls 2 chairs to face his desk and sits behind his own. Once Lexa and I are seated he finally addresses us.

"Okay, despite what you two might think, I'm not oblivious." I can see Lexa shift in her seat next to me out of the corner of my eye. "Lexa, I'm sure that Clarke has told you or that you've heard about the boys who got expelled last year because of the relationship they were in." Oh shit…

"Now I'm also sure that Clarke has told you how angry Indra and I were about hearing why they were expelled." Lexa barely nods her head in acknowledgment. Professor Gustus lets out a heavy sigh, he really does that a lot. "I just wanted you two to know that I don't care if you're together. I actually think it's great and that you'll be good for each other." Both Lexa and I's checks turn a bright red at his words.

"But I want to warn you both. I have no idea what the administration's problems are, but I will tell you now that they come from way above even Dean Jaha's head. As far as I'm aware, with the events of last year, the whole teaching, coaching, and on school staff were in an uproar, even Jaha. As for the students, Clarke can tell you that there were several riots and protests in the main quad for weeks. I guess what I'm trying to say is, be careful. I really don't want you guys to get expelled for something as ridiculous as being in a relationship with someone you care about." The tension in the room after Gustus falls silent could be cut with a knife, luckily Gustus has a great way with words.

"Great talk girls! Now get out of my classroom because you have 7 minutes to be changed and on the football field." Lexa and I literally leap out of our chairs and fly through the door.

"Do you have clothes with you?" Lexa asks.

"Yeah what about you?" I throw over my shoulder pushing through the double doors that lead outside.

"Yeah I'm good."

We manage to actually make it onto the field just in time, still pulling shoes and shirts on, but on time.

"Alright! Everyone listen up!" Indra yells from the center of the field. "Today we're going to be split into two teams and working separately. Offense, you're coming with me. Defense, you're going with Quint. At 6:30 I want all of your sorry asses back here for a scrimmage. Is that understood?" A loud chorus of yes sir is yelled back as a reassurance that everyone heard Indra loud and clear. Once everyone runs off to where they're supposed to be, Indra walk over to where Lexa and I are standing a few feet away from where the main huddle was.

"Glad to see you're on time for once." Lexa bows her head in understanding. "You and Clarke are going to be working over by me and the offense. I still want you to see what you'll have to work with when you can get back to practice and I want to keep an eye on you two." We both nod in understanding and follow Indra as she walks over to where the offensive players are waiting.

"For the scrimmage though, I want your full attention on what is going on. Also, at the end I want you to let me know what you think of our current quarterback. That's him, Dax. Once you recover enough to get back into practice, he'll start training as your back up." Indra gestures to a rather tall thin boy standing with Bellamy and Lincoln. There's nothing really striking about him, average build, blondish brown hair, uniform hanging loosely off his shoulders. He really doesn't look like he could take a hit very well. But it's his eyes that catch your attention. They're a typical light brown color, but how they look make me stop in my tracks. They look wild, crazed, unfocused, like he could lose it any moment but no one else seems to notice or be very concerned.

"Well, I guess I'll leave you two to do whatever you need to do. I can't leave these boys alone to long otherwise they'll start slacking off." Indra turns to said boys ad blows her whistle so loud I'm pretty sure my ears are bleeding. Lexa and I walk maybe 50 feet away from the gathering boys to start what will hopefully be a peaceful session of light stretching.

Thankfully something went right for once. Lexa and I used the hour and a half to ourselves to get to know each other more. Lexa told me about her and Anya, how she got interested in football and track, and I even managed to drag out a few childhood stories from her. I in turn told her more about my life here at Ark High and what all those summers alone were like, but also about when I was younger growing up with Wells. I even told her about how Raven, Octavia, and I first met. And thanks to our continued dialogue an hour and a half flew by and before we knew it Indra was blowing her whistle for everyone to meet in the middle of the field again.

"Listen up everyone. You have 30 minutes to prove to Gustus, Quint, and I why you deserve to be play on varsity this year. This scrimmage and the one we will have in 2 weeks will determine what team you are on and what string you are. After today, you will be split into two separate groups. The ones we think will play varsity in one and the ones we think still need work in another. Remember these groups can change after the second scrimmage! If you are put in the bottom group, in two weeks prove to us why you deserve to be moved onto the varsity group. If you're make the varsity group this week you better be ready to prove to us in two weeks why you still deserve to be there. Now everyone get where you're supposed to be! Now!" Boys are running every which direction to get into their proper positions it's almost comical. Indra, Gustus, and Quint come to stand next to Lexa and I on the sidelines to watch and make notes on the boys' performances.

In the first couple of rounds, the only person I recognize on the field is Dax as the quarterback though a few boys look familiar on the defensive line. At some point Bellamy and Lincoln get cycled in. Bellamy is on the outside position ready to run his designated route while Lincoln stands next to the snapper feet set and ready to defend Dax and the ball. When Indra blow her whistle for them to start everything is over in a matter of seconds. Bellamy takes off down the field, easily out running his defender leaving him wide open. Lincoln on the other hand has his hands full with a defender, easily standing him up at the line. Dax finally sees Bellamy down field and throws the ball. I watch as Bellamy runs even faster to get under the ball as Dax over threw the pass. By some miracle Bellamy manages to jump into the air and grab the ball with one hand, pulling it back into his body as he hits the ground in the end zone.

The offensive line goes wild with Bellamy's amazing catch, running to congratulate him while the three coaches next to me quickly write down notes on the play. I feel Lexa shift closer to me so that she can easily lean down and whisper into my ear.

"What you saw there was an amazing effort on Bellamy's part. He will definitely be on the varsity team. Lincoln also did an amazing job of holding up his man on the line. He gave Dax several extra seconds to finally throw the ball. If Lincoln hadn't done that then Dax would be on his ass and Bellamy's talent would have not have been put to use. He'll most likely be joining Bellamy on the varsity team. As for what you saw Dax do, that was what a rookie would do and from what I've heard from Indra, he's been your quarterback for two years." I nod my head in agreement because now that I see him play, I do recognize Dax.

At almost every game last year it seemed that he managed to screw us over by his in ability to actually play. But before I could say anything Indra's blowing her whistle again and dismissing the team telling them that the groups will be announced tomorrow before practice. The team huddles up one last time where Bellamy leads them. After all of the boys are back in the locker room, Gustus, Indra, and Quint turn to Lexa.

"Okay Lexa, now that you've gotten to see the boys actually play some, what do you think?" Gustus asks, clipboard still out and pen still in hand.

"You definitely have potential to be very good. Your defense is strong and stout on the line and pretty good with shallow and mid coverage but still needs some work on deep coverage and along with staying with their target, so probably speed drills would be the best while the line needs to work on overwhelming the offensive quickly. Your offense actually looks pretty good. You will definitely need to utilize Bellamy's ability to ditch his defender/speed and his determination to catch the ball. Lincoln on the other hand needs to stay where he is. He added at least three seconds to Dax's time to throw the ball, time which I'm sure you are well aware of could make all of the difference. And your running game looks to in top performance. The only big problem on your offensive line is Dax. He plays too fearfully like he's afraid to get hit. He also doesn't have good control of the ball or enough strength to pull off difficult throws. You could teach him, but it will take a while and he needs to stay in the pocket, he was running all over the place. That makes him more at risk to be tackled in the backfield." All three coaches are quickly writing down everything Lexa says, going back to previous pages and making new notes while revising old ones.

"Alright, thank you Lexa. We'll take everything into account. Girls see Monday and have a nice weekend." Lexa and I nod turning around to go back to the girl's locker room when Gustus calls out to us again, making us turn around to look at him.

"Just remember what I told you earlier. There are some people who will use any excuse to get you kicked out of this school."

Gustus's words ring in my ears for the rest of the night. While we were cleaning up for dinner, during dinner, after we got back to our room, and even while we were supposed to be working on homework. I know Lexa understands, but it seemed that I really freaked out Octavia and Raven at dinner since my phone has been buzzing nonstop. I'm finally snapped out of my thoughts when Lexa pushes our books off my bed and pulled me down to lay next to her.

"You still thinking about what Gustus said then?" Lexa whispers into the new darkness.

"I can't stop thinking about what he said. If I get expelled before I turn 18 I'll have to go into the system and there's no way I'll survive." I mumble back, burying my head in Lexa's neck. I breathe in her unique smell of pine trees, sweat, and earth, something that I can't help but wonder about but yet have quickly grown to love.

"Hey, it's going to be okay Clarke. No one is going to find out, at least those that we can't trust. I'm sure Raven and Octavia will figure it out soon enough and I'm pretty sure Bellamy and Lincoln have their suspicions already. We just have to make sure Cage, his posy, and anyone loyal to him don't figure it out or get any kind of proof. Because without proof it's just their word against ours." I take a shuttering breath and nod in agreement.

"Yeah, I think you're right, and knowing Raven and Octavia I'm surprised they're not pounding on the door demanding we tell them yet." I quip back making Lexa's chest rise and fall with quiet laughter.

"Of course I'm right Clarke, I am the Commander after all, and the Commander is never wrong." I snort and roll on top of her, holding her hands above her head.

"Is that so, oh great Commander?"

"You dare doubt me Clarke of the Sky People?" Sky People, that's what everyone calls the cheerleading team since we're in the air so much.

"I'm not doubting you, I'm just saying that you have to be wrong sometimes. Everyone is wrong sometime."

"But the Commander is never wrong. I have the wisdom of hundreds of Commanders before me or says the legend back at Polis." I snort trying to come up with some clever retort but can't come up with one.

"Just shut up, you talk too much." I whisper before pressing my lips against hers to finally silence them.

The kiss starts off slow, nothing more than slow chaste lips working slowly at each other careful not to hurt Lexa's three rips in her's. I let go of Lexa's hands to tangle one of mine in her hair while the other gently brushes at the stupid gash running down her check. With her hands freed, Lexa brings one up to cup the back of my neck, bringing us even closer while the other goes to my hip where her thumb rubs obscure patters against the exposed skin there. This sends a shutter down my spine that makes Lexa's lips curl into a smug smile. And that was the turning point. Lexa her tongue against my bottom lip seeking permission to enter and I'm really in no position to deny her. As our tongues fight for dominance of the kiss, Lexa wraps one of her legs around my back and in one motion flips without separating our lips so that I'm now pinned under her tall lean beautiful body.

But just as I'm pulling Lexa's shirt off we hear it. The low creak and groan of centuries old floor boards. We instantly pull apart, Lexa more or less leaping into her bed and pulling the covers over herself not a moment too soon because just as Lexa's head hits her pillow our door creaks open letting the bright light of the hallway floods in for several seconds as the teacher on duty checks to make sure that there are two bodies in two beds. As soon as the door is shut and the sounds of footsteps are long gone, Lexa's back in my bed pushing me over so that my head is resting on her shoulder and the rest of my body is curled tightly into her side.

"That was a close one huh?" Lexa retorts, wrapping her arms tightly around my waist.

"Yeah maybe a little too close." I feel Lexa nod in response and an easy silence falls between us for some time, the only sound that I can hear is the steady beating of Lexa's heart. But I find that the question that's been nagging me since the end of practice is more pressing than the silence.

"Hey Lex?" I feel rather than hear her hum, "No offense to your Commanderness, but why were Quint, Indra, and Gustus so adamant about hearing your thoughts on the team?"

"I was wondering when you would ask me that." Lexa shifts slightly so that I'm more on her than not. "At the very first practice on Monday, I guess my only practice, they asked me to evaluate the team as a whole after a small scrimmage to determine what needs to be worked on. You see Clarke, back at Polis before I got there, there really was no football team or legacy. I more or less built the whole thing myself. Of course there were coaches and staff there, but they didn't really have any idea what they were doing. I gave them play books, coaching techniques, everything to build a state champion team. And if you go back and look at the two teams I played with while I was there you can see that they are almost identical in make-up. I wanted a strong defense more than anything so I built one. I made sure that the line men were big and strong, but also nimble and quick on their feet. I made sure the pass protection was fast and could also catch like a receiver. I made sure my offense was just as strong as I was. That the runners knew their routes and trick plays and that my defenders knew how to give me the most amount of time to make a throw. Indra, Quint, and Gustus are some of the only people that have figured out that I designed and basically built my team. I guess they respect my ability to make a strong team and wanted my input for their roster." Lexa says all of this like it's the most normal thing in the world.

"Oaky, I can totally respect that, but what about Dax?"

"What about him?"

"Is he really that bad or are you just looking for an excuse to get rid of your competition?" Lexa lets out a half snort half chuckle.

"No Clarke I'm not just saying what I did to get rid of him. He truly is that bad. And I'll tell you why. I'm sure you saw his eyes when we first walked up." I nod slowly thinking I was the only one to have seen, "The guy is scared out of his mind of being tackled. If you watch his form, he moves around way too much and he doesn't plant his feet when he throws. This makes his throws much more inaccurate and his range much shorter. He also doesn't think with his head." She taps the top of my head then, "But instead thinks with his heart. He doesn't make the rational choice of where to throw, he makes based on how much he likes the person he's throwing too. All of these things make him not only a bad quarterback but also a bad leader. From my experience, a team usually follows their best leader which in most teams is their quarterback or someone on their offensive line, a high scorer for instance. They do this because they hold a seat of power, of respect, and of discipline. When a team lacks in a good strong leader, they suffer. They have no cause to fight behind and they have no person to look to for guidance or strength. And that's why Dax is a bad quarterback, not because I want to get him out of my way so that I can be the only logical choice as quarterback, but because he is in the way of the team and what they can achieve." I think carefully about that Lexa's said about Dax and think back to practice to see if I can think of what she was talking about. Surprisingly I can see exactly what she's talking about. I think back to when Bellamy caught his wild throw. No one went to congratulate him, but went straight to Bellamy.

"Yeah I get what you're saying. And I never really thought you were getting rid of him just so you could play. I've seen you play. There's no way in hell he would ever be able to beat you out for the job."

"Well thank you for the vote of confidence Clarke, it's much appreciated." I hum in acknowledgement suddenly too tired to answer. It's only moments later that I vaguely hear Lexa mutter a goodnight before I lose my battle with sleep.

 **I just love dragging this out longer than it needs to be. But get ready for the next chapter, it's going to be just a little different. Hopefully it will be out in a couple of days.**


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